Blog Post #8 The Last Lecture Video

      After watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture I am speechless. I am absolutely at a loss for words and no simple blog post is going to be nearly sufficient enough to express just how moving that video was. It left me in tears at the end. This man truly emblemizes the kind of legacy I want to leave behind as an educator and not just as an educator but as a person. While watching the video I found myself jotting down topics and side notes Randy mentions throughout the lecture and when I went back and read my notes I was taken aback. I saw words like hope, dream, loyalty, leadership, achieve, and most importantly, fun. These are the basic qualities of life I hope to inscribe into my own students and even my future children.
      As I listened to Randy's life and all the dreams he had come true it made me step back and examine my own life. Just what am I doing right now to pursue my dreams? Have I allowed the world and society to help me forget those childhood dreams that used to be so important? To Randy, becoming an imagineer worker for Disney was close to impossible.

 

 

This is where he discovered his first real "brick wall." But without these, according to Randy, people wouldn't be able to tell apart who really wanted to work hard for it and those who didn't. I can say that I have faced a few of these myself and if I'm being honest with myself, I have walked away from a lot of them. Randy taught me to face them head on. He also taught me not to fear those around me who seem to be angry with no soft side. He's right, if you hang around long enough, everyone has a good side just like every brick wall can be taken down with enough hard work and determination.

      Randy and I share a perspective that is very close to my heart for learning: wanting the students to bond together while learning and having fun. Aside from all the success of his ETC class and other endeavors at Carnegie Mellon University, Randy above all wanted his students to be "head-faked" into learning really hard stuff while having fun at the same time. This is all I want for my future students. I've never been a huge fan of a technology take over, but if this is what will allow my students to have fun while learning and connecting with each other than I will embrace technology with open arms for every aspect of the classroom. All I want is to do like Randy and help others achieve their dreams. Opportunities for my own dreams will come and go, but my career will forever be based on helping others achieve their dreams and learning that brick walls can come down with hard work.

      A big success in his classroom is something we have been learning about in EDM310. He didn't have a name for it and I do not think the program had even been thought of yet but it was very plain to see project based learning was what his classroom was all about. Randy even stated that book learning was thrown out the window on the first day because he knew his students had been reading books for 4 years and by then they had probably read all the books. His curriculum said nothing but project all across the border. With the success that came from the pioneering class, we should all be learning from him. What his students were able to achieve in that class just prove how effective PBL really is and how it can push your students to limits they never believed possible. That's another thing I like that Randy says, "Never set the bar." By setting the bar we are limiting what our students can do and that is worst thing an educator can ever do for their students.

      Above all, Randy seemed like he was a magnificent guy who was a leader to pretty much everyone around him. He definitely got a lot out of life and he wanted everyone around him to get the most out of life as well. This video was very inspirational and I'll never forget it. We can all learn a lot from Randy. Never stop learning. Never stop helping others. Never stop having fun.