Sunday, March 4, 2012

Blog Post 6

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture
his book

Randy Pausch delivered an amazing speech titled “Last Lecture-Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” On September 18, 2007, he stepped in front of an audience of 400 people at Carnegie Mellon University and talked about achieving childhood dreams. He started the presentations with slides of his CT scan about his pancreas cancer that will kill him soon. On that stage you could never tell he was fighting cancer. He was energetic, youthful, cheerful, and very funny. He seemed to be like Captain Kirk invincible. Unfortunately, as tough as he fought the cancer took his life July 25th, 2008.

In his lecture he talked about his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned. During his childhood he dreamed big about going somewhere, meeting amazing people, and doing great things. As a football fan going in the NFL seems like a wonderful goal. Training to get there he met positive, caring coaches. One thing he learned was to never give up and take any criticism given. He gained enthusiasm and fundamentals for living and successful life. He also learned that hard work pays off.

“Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Although he was not able to do everything he dreamed he found better dreams. Wanting to be an imaginer at Disney land was the biggest, but he got turned down. As a determined young man he never let the brick wall block him. Pausch fought down every wall and even with rejections he found a way to get close to his dream job.

As a future educator, like Pausch I believe every child should dream big. He taught kids through technology that learning does not have to be boring. With his class “Building Virtual Worlds” he enabled college students to think out the box and do something they never did before. He was amazed at the outcome; this shows you how amazing students can be when doing things they aren’t use to and learning while doing them. I to want to find ways to get my students involved without dreading doing the work, and coming up with ways that teach them how to stay focused while working with peers. This world is growing because minds are being put together. One person alone cannot do everything. Left and right brains are needed to develop bigger, better projects.

To get where he was it took many different people. With the help of parents, mentors, students, friends, and colleagues he became a phenomenon with a legacy that will live on forever. One quote that stuck with me was

“The brick walls are there for a reason. 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. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
― Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture.
After listing to this lecture I learned that no matter what obstacles faced I should dream bigger and fight harder. I will continue encouraging any youth in my path to do the same. I have a quote in my room that I look at every day. I will put it in my classroom to encourage my students. It says “ Dream, as if you’ll live forever Live, as if you’ll only have today.” In the words of Pausch “Are you a Tigger or an Eyore?”

3 comments:

  1. Hi Magan!
    You have a very well written blog, and it is very interesting with all the information you put in there. I put the same quote about experience in my blog post as well. This was something that stuck out to me, and I could not help but write about it. Also, your last quote makes me laugh. Even when I saw it in his final lecture, I laughed. I found his last lecture to be funny and entertaining, not boring or dull. This was a great thing to get to watch, and it is very inspiring. Keep up the great work with your blog! This was a very good post!
    Jessica Scarpa

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  2. "This world is growing because minds are being put together. One person alone cannot do everything. Left and right brains are needed to develop bigger, better projects." These three sentences are awkwardly written. Think about how you might revise them. In fact, think about the entire paragraph.

    The reason we include this video is to inspire you to bust through those brick walls, to raise the bars, to execute effective head fakes and much more. I hope you will do these things when you are a teacher. Keep on learning!

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  3. Magen,
    You have a wonderful blog. I really like how you incorporated quotes throughout your post. This made it more interesting for your reader. I agree that we need to teach children to dream big. It is sad but more and more children are not getting that encouragement at home. As a result, as educators, we are sometimes the only ones that will push the children to dream big. Keep up the great work!
    Leslie Fail

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