Blog Post #8

What can we learn about teaching and learning from Randy Pausch?

In the video, Randy Pausch's Last Talk, our speaker talks about how his lectures go about and he specifically goes over his topics for the lecture presented, including: his childhood dreams, enabling dreams of others, and lessons learned. Randy explained that the points behind his lectures is he always thinks to talk about a topic like it is his last. He is very sick and he doesn't know when his last day will be, so he speaks as if every day is.

He first approaches his audience with his childhood dreams. What do we get out of that that involves teaching and learning? He uses his childhood dreams as examples of what he has learned from his dreams. One thing he states is: "ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!" Inspiration and permission to dream is also huge. His childhood dreams included: Being in zero gravity, playing in the NFL, winning stuffed animals, being Captain Kirk, and being a Disney Imagineer. Randy said he never got to play in the NFL nor did he ever come close, but he learned more from not achieving the dream of playing more than any other dream. His old coach taught him many things. At their first practice, he wanted the team to know fundamentals were more important than bringing a bunch of balls to throw, especially when only one person had it at a time. One rehearsal, Randy said he was yelled at continuously and his coach rode him hard. The assistant coach came to him afterwards and told him if Coach had given him no comment, then that meant he had given up on him. He believed Randy could achieve anything, and that's why he continuously rode him that rehearsal. He knew by doing this, he was pushing him that extra mile. He gives us the quote, "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." He says most of what we learn, we learn indirectly. The coach's purpose for Randy was to send kids out to learn more than just football. In his other dreams, he said you realize some of the things you won't be able to do. He did learn other things through his dreams, including leadership when he met his childhood idol Captain Kirk, instead of being him like he dreamed. He noted Captain Kirk was never the smartest character on the ship but he had leadership qualities no one else had. Then he lastly goes into depth about his dream of being a Disney Imagineer. Although being declined nicely several times to work with the imagineering program, he said he wasn't going to give up. This is what Randy termed as getting past his brick wall. Our brick walls are there to let us prove how badly we want something. One other thing he learned from Disney is if you wait long enough, people will surprise and impress you. Overall, after working with Disney on a top secret imagineering job, he declined it as a permanent job because he wanted to go out and enable childhood dreams of others.



In the second part of his lecture, he asked, "How can I enable childhood dreams of others?" He went on to Carnegie Mellon University and started a course called Building Virtual Worlds. After his first project from his first class, he was amazed at the work his students created and didn't know if they could go beyond that. Randy said he called a colleague for advice and he asked what he should do next. His colleague told him to say, "Not too bad this go round, but what can you do better?" The overall message given is don't set a bar for kids. Because once they get there, they won't go beyond it. It gave his students excitement, which gave excitement to others, when the whole university started coming to watch their final products at the end of the semester. They were excited to share their hard work, because Randy never gave them a bar to set themselves to, they exceeded their own. After several years of that course, he moved onto another called The Dream Fulfillment Factory. This class was for graduate students. He basically said he had no patience for book learning. They did all of that in undergraduate studies. Randy defined this course as one involving project based learning. All in all, after the semester, he said the best gift an educator could give is to be self reflective. He applied "head-fake" strategy his whole career. This basically goes beyond the fundamental basics of the matter.


In the last section of Randy's lecture, he talks about lessons learned. Randy says that we don't get anywhere without the help of our parents, colleagues, friends, teachers, or mentors. We don't get where we are in life alone. Advice he gives to us is to: tell the truth, be earnest, apologize when you screw up, focus on others and not yourself. Not only this but he mentions that the brick wall lets us show dedication. To get around it, he advises to: not bail, get a feedback loop and LISTEN to it, show gratitude, and don't complain, just work harder.

In the final minutes, Randy gives his last pieces of advice.

• Be good at something. It makes you valuable.
• Work hard. 
• Find the best in everybody; no matter how you have to wait for them to show it.
• Be prepared.

I believe this is what Randy is saying about learning and teaching. Be open to anything and everything. Don't let one small issue stand in your way. Figure out your way around it and find help along the way.