Blog Post 8

While watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams I really didn't know what to expect. At the beginning he states that he has 10 tumors in his liver and only has 3-6 months to live and he was told this 1 month ago. First, when hearing this all I could think about was how could he be in such high spirits and giving a lecture when he should be spending all of his time with his family. Well anyways, he started out by telling us his childhood dreams. As he was going through and explaining them one really stuck out to me and it was about his dream to play in the NFL. Even though he didn't play for the NFL, he got to play in school. He said that "most of what we learn, we learn indirectly (or"head fake")". By saying this he meant that when your kids play football (or other sports) you don't necessarily want them to learn football. You want them to learn the things that come with it such as teamwork, sportsmanship, and perseverance... Which are the most important things. This really had an impact on me because when I played sports in school I thought that I was going to continue to play further than high school, but when that didn't work out I still think of the things I learned while playing to this day. Little life lessons that all of my coaches taught me are still with me today. At the time I never thought about how much it would impact my future, but after hearing this talk I definitely realized that it had made a great one.

After saying all of that, I can say that this applies to teaching and learning as well. Whether it's sports or in the classroom, teachers are not just there to drill knowledge into kids brains. While yes, we want them to succeed and learn the things necessary to have a successful future, the little things we teach them about life are important too. Working in groups and learning to work with those who are different from you can make a huge difference when you get older. You learn to accept what's different and work with others in situations where you need help in the future. Believe it or not but things your teachers do when you are in elementary school will have an impact on your whole life and can impact the way you teach in the classroom.