Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch’s video, The Last Lecture, was very inspiring. He made some very good points and he seems like he was a wonderful educator. Randy Pausch used different methods when teaching which made his course even more fun and interesting. His love and passion for teaching showed through him and that is truly a way that students get excited about learning. The Last Lecture was about Randy’s childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons that you learn as you go on to be an educator. Also, he shared that we will be able to use the methods, he told us about, to enable your own dreams and the dreams of others. He talks about his own childhood dreams and shares his life situations which make it easier to see that your childhood dreams can come true.

One method that Randy Pausch discusses in The Last Lecture is the importance of enabling childhood dreams. He says that enabling a child’s dream can often be better then enabling your own. It is so important to help children reach and get to their dreams because that is something they strive for. As future educators, we have to have the drive to help every student accomplish their dreams and goals. Part of our job will be to enable the dreams of each one of our students.

Another method that Randy Pausch spoke about was a different meaning of brick walls. “The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. They are there to keep out the other people. ” With this quote, Randy gives brick walls a whole new meaning. This is such a motivational quote because we all reach “brick walls” in life but we have to decide how to get over the wall. We have to work hard and push through the wall to make it to the other side, to what we want. This quote has a lot of meaning behind it because it could be a great illustration for our students, as well as us. Teaching our students about the importance in “brick walls” and how to get to the other side is a good way to help them accomplish anything they want!

A final teaching method that Randy talks about is the importance in creativity and having fun while teaching. Teaching is so much more than books, paper, pencils and chalkboards. It’s about engaging your students in learning and having fun while doing so. Randy Pausch sounds like he was a very fun, creative, lively, loving, passionate teacher. He had the motivation and the skill to make students want to learn. I am a firm believer of keeping your classroom alive with creativity and fun! Don’t get me wrong, I understand learning is serious business and we will be preparing our students for the future. But who says that learning can’t be fun? And if there is any opportunity to make the lesson interesting, I’m going to take that opportunity and run with it.