Blog Post #8

I watched the Last Lecture when it first became a Youtube hit, but I never fully understood what the whole lecture was about. After watching it 7 years later, I now know what Randy Pausch was trying to get across: Do good, and good will come to you. One quote that I loved was: "The inspiration and the permission to dream is huge". Just being able to dream means that you have some sort of will to do something. He had all of these visions and childhood dreams, and he got to achieve them. Even if he didn't really meet Captain Kirk, or even if he didn't really go into space and experience zero gravity, he still achieved those goals in some way. He got to help with Disney Imagineer, and create an amazing program for students at Carneige Mellon. So, I would say he definitely achieved his childhood goals.

Never give up. This was something Pausch was very adamant on. Keep trying and trying, and eventually, you will see results. "Brick walls are there to let us prove how badly we want things. It shows our dedication." As a future educator, telling your students to never give up and that you'll help them in anyway is extremely important and is something I will do. As a teacher, you should also never give up on your students. Pausch said that "the best thing for an educator to achieve is to get somebody to be self-reflective". This means to get your students to really look for mistakes they have made in their school work, or anything for that matter. One thing I learned was to always get feedback from people and LISTEN to it. This is something I need to work on. I sometimes get a little bit bitter towards people when they tell me the honest truth. But, they are only trying to help. After watching this lecture, I really hope I can have an impact on people like Randy Paush did. He seemed like an amazing educator and it really is a shame he only lived 47 years. I hope that I can have an impact on my future students.