Blog Assignment 6

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

While giving his last lecture, Randy Pausch continues to inspire educators as well as future educators to enable the dreams of others. In his lecture at Carnegie Mellon University, he talks about all of his childhood dreams including the ones he accomplished as well as the ones he didn't accomplish. Pausch recounts what happened through his journeys of trying to accomplish each of his dreams, each of which is a truly inspiring tale. He continues his lecture talking about the time he spent as a professor at Carnegie Mellon, as well as the different projects that he was a part of.
During the first part of the lecture, Pausch talked about all of his childhood dreams. One that really stood out to me was becoming a Disney Imagineer. I can remember being a child and being very interested in Disney's Imagineers and wondering just how much went into their jobs. I can only imagine his joy when he got to finally work with them. Throughout his lecture, the quote "brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things" was repeated in his presentation. This reminds me that bad things are going to happen, and you can either stop and run from that brick wall, or you can plow right through it. If you want something badly enough, there are always tools available somewhere for you to use to break that wall away. "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted," was also used in his presentation. This is also very meaningful in that even when you think you have failed, you always gain experience.
As Pausch talked about his time as a professor, I couldn't help but to make mental notes of things that I wanted to try when I become an educator. For example, I love the "head-fake" way of learning. He explains that this is a way for students to learn one thing, while thinking they are learning about something else. It is a way for the student to have fun while they are learning something hard. I think that this is very important. Children get so bored with challenging things, and by making the learning process fun, they will be more apt to pay attention and get something out of the lesson. Pausch also took part in a lot of project based learning with no book work. This is something that, for the right subject, could be so beneficial to the student. I know that I would learn and know so much more by "doing" rather than reading. When he was talking about the projects that his students did in groups, he mentioned a group feedback chart. This was a bar chart of all of the students names, ranked to show who was easiest to work with. This let the students know when they needed to step up and be better group members. I really liked this. If I do a lot of group work with my students, I will definitely try something to this effect with them to not only grade their group performance, but to show them that they could be doing better and/or that they are an excellent group member.
As his lecture comes to a close, he makes a few suggestions and lists things that we all should remember. The first, decide whether you are a Tigger or Eeyore. The second is to never lose your childlike wonder and the third is to help others. He continues with a fourth thing to remember, which is that loyalty is a two-way street. The fifth thing is to never give up. He then asks how you get people to help you, and his answers are to tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, and focus on others. He reminds us to not bail out, and to get a feedback loop and most importantly, listen to it. He reminds us to show gratitude, and lastly to not complain; just work harder.
I enjoyed, so much, Pauch’s last lecture. He truly is inspiring, and I can say that this is by far one of the most entertaining and interesting lectures I have ever listened to. From all of his accomplishments to the way he was accepting of his last days, it was clear that he led a very rich life. I could have listened to this lecture an hour more! He was so humorous and easy to listen to. I found myself laughing one minute, and being moved to tears the next. I wish I had had the pleasure of knowing him. He seemed to be such an encouraging and hands-on professor and I can bet he was a fantastic mentor. You could tell that he really pushed the limit with everything, and it paid off. I hope that the Alice project is everything that he wanted it to be, and that his legacy lives on.