Blog Post #7

I loved watching the video for this blog post, Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, it was very inspiring. Randy Pausch found out that he had cancer and was told he only had three to six months to live. He died at the young age of 47, only a couple months after giving "The Last Lecture". On the video he showed a picture of his x-ray and he had more than ten tumors at the time he gave "The Last Lecture". When watching this lecture you would never know that Randy only had a few more months to live. He was happy and excited to share about his childhood dreams and accomplishments. Randy stated that one of the most important things for children is to not lose sight in the permission to dream. This is so true, students need to try to achieve their dreams and also enable the dreams of others.

Randy Pausch talked about his childhood dreams during the lecture. I loved how he described his dream of playing in the NFL. He said that he received more from this dream without even accomplishing it. I like how he explained how his coach showed up for the first day of football practice without a football. He explained how it was all about the fundamentals or otherwise the fancy stuff isn't going to work. This is something that is true all throughout life and important for us to learn as educators. I also like how Randy Pausch explained being critiqued and how it was a lesson that has stuck with him his entire life. He said that it was a good thing when the coach was screaming at you during football practice telling you what you are doing wrong. If you are screwing up and no one says anything to you anymore that means they have gave up on you. This is something that I need to remind myself as an educator. When critiquing a student we are showing them that we love and care about them and only want what is best for them.

I love how Randy described how he learned that sometimes you run into a brick wall. Brick walls are in our way as dreamers so we can work harder to prove how bad we really want something. Everyone hits brick walls a couple of times throughout their lives, I know I have hit a couple already. The brick walls are there to make us stronger and to get us to work harder for what we really want. As I am beginning my carer as an educator I am sure that I will hit multiple brick walls along the way. I believe these brick walls are what will make me a stronger and better educator.

One thing that stuck with me when watching this video was what Randy said about presenting yourself. He explained how he went to his Dean at the time and explained to him about the once in a lifetime chance he had to do the Imagineering project with Disney. The Dean did not know if it was a good idea so he did not want to work out any agreements with Randy. So Randy went to the Dean of Sponsored Research and Randy asked the Dean if he thought it was a good idea. The dean responded by saying, "I don't know if it's a good idea but all I know is one of my star faculty members is in my office and he is really excited so tell me more." Both of the Deans said the same thing but presented their answers in completely different ways. This is very important for educators to learn about. You can present yourself in a good or bad way. You need to listen to your students and learn more about what they are saying before jumping to conclusion.

Randy taught me so much through his lecture. He is a true inspiration and I hope all educators have the opportunity to watch his lecture. The last thing I would like to point out that I loved about his lecture was how Randy responded to his students work. He was blown away by the assignment the students did in two weeks in his course called Building Virtual Worlds. He said that he would have given all the students A's for the class if he had given them a whole semester for this one assignment. He had no idea what to do next so he called his mentor for some guidance. His mentor told him to tell the students, "you all did pretty well but I know you can do better." This was something that I found very useful for myself as a future educator. He explained that you don't know where the bar should be for the students and you always encourage them to do more. He said his students just kept going and blowing his mind more and more. Randy taught me that a dream is never too big and that there will always be brick walls along the way but to never give up!