After watching this video, I find myself thinking how truly inspirational this man was. I almost cried at the end when he brought out the birthday cake for his wife. This said a lot about him as a person. He was truly selfless and always wanted to help others. I learned so many things from this video. The big idea in Randy Pausch's Last Lecture was to be optimistic. Pretty much everything he said ties back to this. This is a great thing to remember as a teacher. He says, "give people time and they will impress you." You cannot just give up on a student just because you think they will never learn. This reminds me of The Freedom Writers Diary. The freedom writers were children who had the world against them, but with a little support, they achieved their dreams.
Teach your students to never give up. "Brick walls let you know how bad you want something." Just because things seem hard or impossible, it does not mean you cannot achieve. Our job as teachers is to get kids to believe in themselves. We have to be their critics and their allies. If you help a child with their mistakes, it means you care. If a child learns how to keep improving, the belief in themselves will come naturally. We all have had experienced that have helped us grow. These experiences may have not been the best, but they helped us in the long-run.
As a teacher, if you mess up, let your students know. Apologize. What better way is there to be a role model? If students see you trying to be cold and perfect all the time, they will never relate with you. You have to get on their level. That means showing that you are human. Being human will also help your students take feedback better. If they know everyone makes mistakes, even the teacher, it will be easier for them to realize and correct their mistakes. They also will not feel so bad when they mess up.
Let the kids have fun learning. Do not make every task so structured that the students cannot let their imaginations run free. Let them come up with their own ideas. It will make them better people. No one wants to work with someone who has no ideas. Students with no ideas are the products of their learning environment. If you have always been spoon-fed information, it is hard for you to learn on your own. As teachers, we should make learning fun and student-based so children will learn material as well as life lessons.
I enjoyed reading your post! I thought you brought up some very good points. I also loved his reference to brick walls. We should give everyone a chance to prove themselves. Each student has equal potential! Remember to read over your post again before submitted. There are some grammatical errors. Overall, great job!
ReplyDeleteThe reason we include this video is to inspire you to bust through those brick walls, to raise the bars, to execute effective head fakes and much more. I hope you will do these things when you are a teacher.
ReplyDeleteThoughtful, well done!