Blog Post 10

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

How to Achieve Your Dreams...

Let me start off by saying that Randy Pausch was an amazing man with outstanding characteristics. He was a professor at Carnegie-Mellon University. Dr. Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told he only had a few months left of good health. He gave his "last lecture" at Carnegie -Mellon in 2007. He shortly died in September 2008.

Randy Pausch teaches us that there are key elements to learning. I learned that it is important to have fun. A memorable quote that Randy left is "There is nothing like watching kids have fun learning something hard." I love this quote. As a future educator I will definitely keep this in mind. Another key element to learning is to never give up, according to Randy. While learning or even teaching something difficult, you may want to give up. It is important that you don't. Treat others right. This is a sure way to ensure that you will always have people willing to help you. He tells us to tell the truth, be earnest, and apologize when you mess up. Randy Pausch's humbleness really touched my heart. He brought out a huge birthday cake for his wife even though it was his last lecture and things were "supposed" to be about him. He was upset that she hadn't had a proper birthday the day before I guess, according to him being so busy with things.

My favorite analogy that Dr. Pausch uses is that of the "brick wall." The brick wall represents a reality check in some sort. Once you start following your dreams and achieving your goals you will hit a brick wall. This will separate the real goal achievers from the fake ones. The real ones will never give up and do what it takes to achieve that goal. The brick wall will not stop them. 

So, what can we learn about teaching and learning from Randy Pausch? We can learn that teaching is all about learning. You will never stop learning. Some important advice from Pausch is to be good at something....it'll make you valuable. Also, "Don't complain...just work harder." During his speech he gives us something called a "head fake." In my opinion a head fake is saying one thing but meaning another. You know, just to grab your attention. He goes through the whole lecture kind of avoiding what head fake really is. All we know that there is one. At the end, he tells us that this speech really isn't about how to achieve your dreams. It's about how to live your life and I can really understand what he meant by this. How to live your life in the most positive and productive way. There were two head fakes actually.  The second one was that this speech wasn't for us; it was for his children. That took the cake for me. RIP Randy Pausch.