Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch's Final Lecture

Randy Pausch is an educator to be emulated. I had never heard of him before this course, but I hope I can be like him one day. He captured the essence of teaching for others rather than for building up one’s own ego or credibility. If you haven’t, you need to watch this video,Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture . There were so many great tips in his lecture that it seems almost impossible to name them all. So instead, I will name the ones that stood out most to me.

One of the most important things in his lecture was the idea that “Brick walls are supposed to be there, they show us how badly we really want something.” All people, no matter their profession, will eventually hit that dead end. It isn’t when or why this happens to us that matters, it is how we choose to accept the challenge. For educators, it could be a problem student, a tenure denial, or simply a failing student. Rather than allow the “wall” to become an obstacle, Randy wants us to use it as an opportunity to test our resolve. Will the circumstances define our abilities or will we set our own parameters.

Secondly, teachers can have an immense influence on their students, but they should be showing their students how to influence others. The teachers place is to teach, but can you change forever. Randy Pausch didn’t defend his student to the dean who was after him because he disliked the dean. He did it because he saw his student’s potential for good, not his past failings or accomplishments. Can we do the same as educators? Can you stop the teacher who is talking about how horrible a student was for them from affecting our attitude towards him or her? Will we be able to put each child on a blank slate every year? We need to see a student’s potential rather than their past. Just like Randy, we need to see their work as exceptional and then turn around and say to them “That was great, but I know you can do better.”

One last point, make learning a “head game”. We need to be changing education from a written, boring system into a game or at least an agreeable situation. I think that I went to school for about three hours to learn and the rest of the time to have fun with my friends. I wasn’t there anxiously engaged in classes nearly as much as I was to have fun with my friends, be they fellow students or teachers. Sorry if I just identified myself as a geek. The classes and teachers I remember the most; however, are the ones where I could do both. When learning becomes less of a task and more of an experience to be shared and enjoyed, that is when I will feel like I have succeeded as an educator.