Blog Post #7

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch?

This week we had to watch a video entitled Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. When I first started watching the video, I immediately recognized the man from seeing him on another show where he talked about having pancreatic cancer. Despite his health issues, Randy went on to teach others and inspire them to chase their dreams.

In the video, Randy talks about his childhood and all the dreams that he had and was hoping to accomplish. From there he went on to talk in more detail about each item on his childhood dreams list. Each item that he had on that list seemed almost impossible and unrealistic to accomplish. But with optimism, Randy went out in pursuit of these dreams. With every dream Randy always seemed to hit a brick wall. But Randy quickly realized that the brick wall is there for a reason. It is there to test us, to see if we really want this thing that we are pursuing badly enough. He goes on to say that most people would give up when they hit that brick wall, but for Randy it only made him want to try harder in order to achieve his dreams. One of those dreams was to be a Disney Imagineer. Randy worked hard and accomplished this goal. Mr. Pausch was also a professor for a long time and taught a virtual reality class where the students created their own virtual world. So, what can we learn from Randy about teaching and learning? What I learned from Randy about teaching is that it is important to push students to keep going, even if they have hit their "brick wall." This can apply to both schoolwork and chasing your dreams. Many people have made great things out of their life simply because someone was there to push them to try harder and give it another go or maybe they pushed themselves, even if they failed the first time. Plus, when you try harder you learn more because you are gaining more knowledge from your mistakes and what you can do differently to achieve your goals/dreams. What I also learned from Randy was a concept called "head fake." Essentially this is where students end up learning more from a project or assignment that they take with them throughout the rest of their lives, information that they didn't even realize they were learning. It is like playing a sport. You learn the basic of the game, like how to play, but at the same time you learn friendship, teamwork, and responsibility, things that you didn't even realize you were learning. 

Overall, I learned a lot from Randy Pausch. I learned that you should never let the brick wall stop you from pursuing your goals and dreams, a concept that you can learn from and encourage others/students to overcome as well. I also learned about "head fake" and how we all retain extra knowledge that we didn't even know we were learning, especially when we are pushing ourselves to do better and make it around that brick wall. Most importantly what I learned from Randy Pausch was courage. The courage to not except no for an answer when it comes to getting something that you really want, and also the courage to teach and inspire others even when Randy himself was facing a terminal illness. Randy Pausch was and continues to be a true inspiration.