The title itself gives me chills. This man has changed my attitude completely. I loved the fact that in the beginning he says “I don’t want to talk about cancer.” I think that anyone who is having any struggles should watch this. He made amazing points in this video that can help anyone who wants to be a teacher, to do better. He is so positive and believes that the only way to live is to achieve your goals.
He talked about fundamentals. I totally agree. In order to achieve any goal, you must first learn fundamentals. That includes being a teacher. In order to be an amazing teacher, you have to learn from others. It’s more than just teaching. It’s learning from your mentors. This brings me to my first point. As a teacher, you can’t let the students run over you. As Pausch said in his video, “when someone who is teaching you starts to ignore you, that’s when you should worry.” That’s exactly right. I played sports growing up and my father was my coach. He never gave up, because he wanted me to strive to the best. As a teacher, no matter how frustrated I may get, or how much a student wants to give up, we as teachers can not stop mentoring.
Once a student sees a teacher give up, they begin to give up on themselves. And as Pausch says, “Its leadership.” Teachers are leaders for students. I liked how Pausch said that we all should become professors. He explained it as it’s because we can have our cake, and eat it too. He is exactly right. We get to teach. We get to inspire. We get to lead. That’s what is it about. Teachers are not here just to get in front of a classroom and talk, they are here to gather student’s attention and inspire them. Randy does an amazing job at gathering the audience’s attention in this video. It’s because he is so positive. You can not walk into a classroom, no matter how bad your day may be, and bring in a negative attitude. If you do that, the class is not going to hear anything that you will say.
All in all, this man has given me amazing tips. Even though it wasn’t a video on how to teach, or how to be a better teacher, it gives you lessons to learn. No matter what, allow your students to believe in themselves. Pausch believed in everything he did. He inspired others, he let his students inspire him to teach different assignments, and he learned from them as well. That’s how I want to be. To teach, and be taught is amazing. Achieving your childhood dreams isn’t about just doing it to do it. It’s about doing it with you whole heart, believing in it, and fulfilling them as a whole. If you would like to watch this inspirational video, you can find it here.
Jenna,
ReplyDeleteYou have done a wonderful job explaining how the Last Lecture is important to teachers. You make a very good point in saying that if your whole heart is not in it then you should not be doing it. I fully agree. I have observed many teachers who have lost sight of how important their role is as an educator. They get caught up with the paperwork and administrative issues and soon forget about the most important part--the students. I noticed you do not have a clickable link for this assignment. Be sure to have one with every post. Other than this, keep up the good work.