Blog Post #6

The Last Lecture
In Dr. Pausch's video, he had made three points to discuss about in his lecture: childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, and how you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. He named the title of the lecture "Last Lecture" because he had wanted people to think about what would be their last lecture before they died. If I had to give a lecture and it was my last one before I died, I would definitely want it to change someone's life. Would not you?
In his first point, he mentioned that he had six goals that he wanted to complete before he died. They were: being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopdia, being Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, and being a Disney Imagineer. When I was growing up, I always had a few goals I wanted to achieve before I would pass away: play a musical instrument, become a cheerleader, graduate High School, and go to college. Now obviously his dreams were much bigger than mine, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do all these things that others said I could not achieve. When Dr. Pausch said that his first goal was being in zero gravity he had really meant it. There was an aircraft named "Vomit Comet" that made his dream become a reality. He was a professor at the time and his students won a trip to try a fixed-wing aircraft that lasted about twenty five seconds. I wanted to play a musical instrument because it helps you memorize things better (like in math with counting and adding numbers). In the video he had mentioned how there is a reason why there are brick walls: they let us prove how badly we want things. He wanted to play in the NFL and I wanted to be a cheerleader. He wanted to author an article in the World Book Encyclopedia and I wanted to graduate High School with all my other friends. He wanted to be a Disney Imagineer and I wanted to go to college to better myself to become an educator.
If life did not give us brickwalls then how are we going to teach our students how to obtain their goal? Are we going to take the easy way out and sugarcoat everything? I hope not. I do not want my students to always think that everything in life will be handed to them. If they really want something, then do you not think that they should work hard to reach their goal? I know I do. If Dr. Pausch did not have the coaches he had to push him and the mentors telling him that he can do better, then he would not be where he is today. If I did not have the amazing band directors, coaches, and teachers, I would not be here at college wanting to get a degree so that I can help educate people.
Dr. Pausch had some awesome advice about how to get people to help you: you can not get there alone, tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, and focus on others, not yourself. I would most definitely use his advice in my classroom because there are no other ways for people to help you. If we keep working hard on meeting our goals and our students goals, then the brickwall will be knocked down because we know that with hard work and dedication, it will all pay off at the end.