Blog Post #8

I am inspired.

After watching the video by Randy Pausch, "Last Lecture", I admit I Googled him.  Knowing the loss that cancer can bring into ones life, I found that he was incredibly uplifting and inspiring.  What a brave thing it was for him to pass along his dreams and thoughts to those before him knowing that his end might be very near.  

"The inspiration and the permission to dream is huge," was, in my opinion, one of the most profound comments made by Randy Pausch in this video.  I find that statement to carry a lot of weight and clarity.  For a child, dreaming is almost as important as breathing, in my opinion.  A child has the world at their disposal.  All they need to do is explore it.

Randy's Childhood dreams were very creative and meaningful.  

His dreams were:

Being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, authoring a book in the World Book encyclopedia, be Captain Kirk, win stuffed animal, be a Disney Imagineer.

My childhood dreams (noting the ones that I have already met*)

Become an artist*, be a ballerina*, be a marine biologist and swim with dolphins, get married and become a mom*, be a teacher, work for Disney making cartoons, (I am making my teacher dream come true right now....which is amazing).

I think that having dreams as a child is so very important to becoming an adult.  It helps you define who you are and what you are passionate about.

Randy Pausch delivers a great commentary of the dreams he had as a child.  I loved how he depicted each aspect of his dream list.  He did get to experience zero gravity, but not so much his dream of being in the NFL.  I think his quote is a perfect fit for not getting what he actually wanted, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted".  

I think that we can all learn a lot from Randy Pausch.  Take the time to further investigate him.  Find out about the books he wrote.  Pausch has some very insightful thoughts on achievement and what you can actually come away with when making the dreams of your youth come true as an adult and in life.  The program that he was part of at Carnegie Mellon University was and still is a perfect example of Project Based Learning.  In this video Pausch used the word "Edutainment", which I think is a great word to use when explaining Project Based Learning.  

"Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us know how badly we want things."