Blog Post 6

Randy Pausch. Wow, what an inspiration! I thoroughly enjoyed watching his "lecture", Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. However, it wasn't necessarily a lecture in my opinion, it was rather enjoyable and I must say, a very fast hour. I thought it was interesting how he said he got more out of NOT accomplishing one of his dreams (to be in the NFL) than he got out of accomplishing all the others on his list. I think what he was trying to say here was that he was taught true discipline which can be a very strong foundation to form and live by. This, in my opinion, could be viewed as what Randy calls a "head-fake", or better known as a type of distraction or making someone think they are learning something other than what is intended. In this case, Randy thought he was learning how to play football but instead he was learning how to become a better person by developing characteristics such as discipline, team work, communication, courage, loyalty, etc.

Randy mentions numerous valid and interesting points in his "lecture" but one of them in particular stood out to me and that was when he was saying if someone stops giving you advice altogether or stops offering help then they have already given up on you. Which is a very bad thing! You always want critics in your life because there is always room for improvement but only if you know and are aware of what you are doing wrong or need to improve. Criticism is a great thing that many people take to the heart or take the wrong way which defeats the purpose of the initial critique; to make you a better person. Criticism is about to become a very big part of my life as I enter the candidacy program and begin student teaching. However, in all honesty, I would love as many critiques as I can receive because I know that they are only going to enhance my abilities and knowledge necessary to become a future educator for our children. I want to be the best that I can be so that I can offer the best to our children and, in return, form THEM into the best that THEY can be. "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted". This statement speaks for itself and is pretty self-explanatory but is better known as "a lesson learned". The majority of people learn from past "experiences" or, where you went wrong, because you can take away something from that, learn from it, and move on. Mistakes are unfortunately often perceived as a bad thing but what people don't realize is that we all learn from mistakes and they only make us better and who we are as individuals today.

What determines where you will end up is how much motivation you have and how much effort you are willing to put in to make it to the top. This is where the "brick walls" come into play. Whenever these brick walls stop us dead in our tracks, we have to find any way that we can to get back up and fight to push through it to make it to the other side. This teaches us to never give up and never back down because once you DO achieve your goal you will feel like you are on top of the world and will immediately want to set another goal to accomplish. I will use this sense of motivation in our ever struggling economy. It is near impossible to find/keep jobs today and I will have to have the motivation to keep fighting for a teaching job no matter what it takes.

Another technique Randy mentions is allowing time to recognize the good in people rather than just always pointing out the bad. No one person is ALL bad. There is good in everyone, we just have to take the time to find it and see it. I will definitely use this in my classroom and with my future students. I want to try my hardest not to form initial opinions on my students and really focus on finding the good in them and what their interests, talents, goals, and dreams are.

I also strongly believe in "giving credit where credit is due" as Randy suggests. When someone does something good we should take the time to recognize it and applaud them for doing so because this only makes them feel good about what they have done and will make them want to do more of it. Encouragement goes a long way and is contagious so we should pass it on and pay it forward.

I have a 3 year old daughter so when Randy was talking about taking the time to enjoy the little things in life like letting our kids paint their own room, this really hit home with me. I have always been a strong advocate of noticing and enjoying the little things in life rather than the things that can be bought so this concept was very important to me. Life is truly just too short, as Randy sadly proves, so it's important that we live each day to the fullest and if our kids want to do something harmless like painting their own rooms, let them do it.

"Sell something worthwhile, like Education". What great advice. In today's society we seem to be losing all sense of innocence, imagination, and youth and it's a complete shame. I look forward and am anxious to become a teacher so I can offer something fresh and bring back imagination and creativity to children. Children are MUCH too advanced these days and exposed to things we could never dream of being exposed to when we were kids and this will only continue to get worse. I also strongly believe that we learn from our students so it's important to listen to THEM as well.

Last but not least, Randy points out that the best of the gold is always at the bottom of the barrel so it's important that we dig our way to the top, or in this case, the bottom. We have to push through the hard times in life to get what we want and never look back. Do the right thing and good things will follow, take feedback to heart, and always admitt when you're wrong. Randy Pausch, a true inspiration!