Blog Post #7

I watched the video Randy Pausch's Last Lecture in which he talks about the techniques he uses when it comes to achieving his dreams and teaching methods he used at MIT. Some of Randy Pausch's childhood dreams include things like experiencing zero gravity, playing in the NFL, and becoming an Imagineer. The dream about experiencing zero gravity did come true but not without what Randy called "brick walls." Those are there to give people a chance to show how bad they want their dream. Randy beat his "brick wall," by being a media person and being able to experience zero gravity.
Randy did not however complete his dream of becoming an NFL football player, but he learned more from failing at this dream. Randy then said, "experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." Also he learned from this dream about "head fakes," which are valuable and can be applied to many things. Football is a head fake because it teaches you things like teamwork and perseverance without you noticing it and having fun. Randy's dream about becoming an Imagineer did come true and it forever changed him. When he had the opportunity to be hired as an Imagineer permanently he didn't take it.
The teaching methods Randy used are all based around fun. Like he said he is dying and still having fun. When he went to the one of the deans at a university he learned it is all about how you say something that can make the difference. He also didn't become a Imagineer because he new as a professor he could enable not only his childhood dreams, but also others. What he learned when he taught the Building Virtual Worlds is to keep pushing the students if they exceeded your expectations you can still always raise the bar. As a teacher he also liked how, "students had a chance to show people who could be excited about it and that's the best thing you can give somebody is what it feels like to make other people get excited and happy."
Randy also mentioned in his lecture that educators need to help students become self reflective. When we allow students to do that we give them the responsibility to better themselves. He also mentioned that what gets you to achieve your dreams is roles of parents, mentors, and students. When he said this he included how we need to allow students to be creative. Lastly what he said educators need to learn how to learn from their students.