Blog Post #7

Randy Pausch Last Lecture

I absolutely loved this video. Randy Pausch was an amazing teacher with the extraordinary ability to inspire students to go above and beyond and to never give up on their dreams no matter what the obstacles. He was a very inspirational person never setting certain standards for his students. Randy Pausch always believed in being creative and working hard to achieve goals. He impacted millions of people around the world with his lectures. By watching this lecture it made me realize how fortunate I was to still be healthy and enjoy what God has in store for me in my future and to never take anything for granted. 

Randy Pausch's last lecture was very moving. In his last lecture he talked about his childhood dreams, enabling the dreams of others, lessons learned, and how you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others. Randy Pausch started off by talking about his childhood dreams of being at zero gravity, playing in the NFL, being an author of the world book, meeting Captain Kirk, win big stuffed animals, and being a Disney Imagineer. When he talks about wanting to be at zero gravity he tells how NASA used to have this program called, "The vomit comet" for training astronauts. This allowed anyone who was in this to get twenty-five seconds of weightlessness. So he put a team together and submitted a proposal to NASA and they won. However, this was where Randy Pausch talks about hitting his first "brick wall." 

 

He talks about how brick walls are there for a reason, to give us a chance to show how badly we want things. This is very true and is a good quote to have in my future classroom. So that my students will be able to read and be reminded of how important it is to never give up on their dreams. As a teacher I will try my best each and every day to encourage my students to always find a way and to never give up. That if things don't work out the way they planned, step back reevaluate the situation and try another way. The important thing is to never give up!

Another valuable lesson Randy Pausch talked about, was when he was at football practice and his coach kept correcting him and punishing him by making him run drills all practice and when practice was over, his assistant coach came up to talk to him after practice and told him, "when you are screwing up and no one is saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up." Dr. Pausch goes on to say that it is a bad place to be when you are messing up and no one bothers to correct you. Your critics are the ones that are still saying they love you and still care about you. I will always make sure to never give up on my students. I will do my best to be honest and critic my students mistakes to not only further their education but to hopefully encourage them to become better students. 

The thing that Dr. Pausch loved was being not only being a great father and husband but was also being a great Professor. Being a Professor is what helped him to help others achieve their childhood dreams. Shortly after becoming a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helped his students achieve their dreams by creating a class for virtual worlds. He didn't really know where to start with teaching this class, so what he did was split his class of fifty students into random groups of four and gave them two weeks to create their own virtual world. After two weeks the students were to present this work and he was blown away with what his students came up with, the work was completely beyond his imagination. This class exploded, students from all departments would gather at the end of the year to watch all the virtual worlds the students made. This class brought the University together! 

Last he talked about his lessons learned. He talked about the important role of parents, mentors, and students. Dr. Pausch also mentioned how he enjoyed working for each and every boss that he had. He reminds everyone to always have fun with whatever you are doing no matter what, "You can either be a Tigger or an Eeyore" and to always help others. Last, Dr. Pausch talks about telling the truth, being earnest, always apologize when you mess up, and focus on other people and not on yourself. These are great points to always remember and to always do your best to apply these with each and every day that you are given. This lecture was not about how to achieve your dreams it was about how to lead your life. It was very unfortunate that Dr. Pausch passed away during his prime from such an aggressive cancer but he did leave behind a legacy that will always be remembered and talked about for years and years to come.