Today I watched Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. Randy Pausch caught my attention from the very beginning of the lecture. He started off talking about his cancer but yet he was still so happy and energetic. He starts to make jokes about his disease he even states, "I am in good shape now," and then gets on the floor and does push ups. Not your typical lecture huh? That what caught my attention. Pausch has great stage presence and a knows how to capture an audience. In addition to his great stage presence, he caught my attention by using meaningful quotes. One that caught my attention was when he was talking about his disease and stated, "we cannont change the cards we are dealt but we can change how we deal them." He then stated what we were NOT going to talk about. This is a unique approach to a lecture, it allowed the audience to know that this wasnt going to be a lecture about his disease, his family, or about religion.
Randy Pausch then began to talk about his childhood dreams. These were: being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, writing an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, being/meeting captain Kirk, and being an imagineer at Disney. He went on to explain how he got to be at zero gravity because of a project he worked on with his students. Then he told us that no, he never did play in the NFL. He played while he was younger and had a great coach. One of the most meaningful quotes I took from this lecture came from the story about his football coach. Pausch explained how his coach rode him hard one practice and Pausch was told that it was a good thing because, if someone rides you hard to do better its because they care about you but if you are doing something wrong and they do not push you to do better, its because they have given up. I think this is a great piece of advice for everyone, especially teachers. As teachers we need to realize that we are going to be pushing students everyday and maybe the same student the whole year but, we do not need to give up because as soon as we give up, we give the students the chance to give up on themselves.
Another great piece of advice I got from this lecture is this quote, "Experience is what you get when you didnt get what you wanted." I feel that this is a good life lesson for everyone and this needs to be taught to students as well. Randy Pausch also learned this lesson from his experience with football. After football his next goal was to be an imagineer. He went through many obstacles trying to get there and got shot down many times. He then stated that brick walls exist for a reason: "They are there to prove how badly you want something." I believe that teaching this to your students will make them work harder. Put up some brick walls, everything will be ok, and your students will learn more and you might just learn something from your students as well.
Pausch also talked about the course he taught, building virtual worlds. He showed a video and pictures from his time teaching this course. At first he told a story about giving a two week assignment and the students turned in amazing work. He was shocked and didnt know what to do so he called his mentor who told him to go back and tell his students they can do better. He told him this because he didnt know where to set the bar. Pausch then gave one of the best pieces of advice I think I could have as a teacher, dont set the bar anywhere because, if you dont set it your students will keep growing and getting better. I completely agree! If we as teachers do not set the bar then our students will be forced to do better and forced to learn more. This is what we want right? So lets take the advice from this lecture and use it to our benefit and to our students benefit.
At the end of the lecture he talks about getting people to help you. He mentions you have to get other people to help you! This is such good advice because many people do not like to get the help of others. Many people try to do things on their own and some are successful but many are not. Future teachers especially need to get the help of others. We need to listen and learn to the experiences of other teachers.
In conclusion, I absolutely loved this lecture. It was very moving and helpful to me and I feel that I learned many life lessons from Randy Pausch's last lecture. I will most definately take this advice into my future career as a teacher. "Dont complain, just work harder," a quote all teachers and everyone need to do!
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