Blog #7

Randy Pausch is known throughout the United States as a very inspirational speaker. He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He has given many inspirational speeches throughout his life that are made to help you better your own life as well as pass the torch and make other people’s lives better.

In Randy Pausch's Last Lecture, the mood is a little bit different. We learn that Pausch has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer; the doctors give him very little time to live. Even though he has been diagnosed with what will eventually lead to his death, he finds the strength to give his most powerful speech. Pausch will go into detail about his childhood, his dreams that become reality, his time as a college student, worker at Disney Imagineer, and professor.

We learn that during Randy’s childhood, he had several dreams which included going into space, playing in the NFL, meeting Captain Kirk off of Star Trek, becoming an Imagineer at Disney, and winning big stuffed animals at fairs. Throughout his life he eventually accomplishes all of these things except for playing in the NFL. Even though he did not play in the NFL, Pausch learns many valuable lessons while playing football as a nine year old boy. The first quote presented during his speech is: “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want”. This means that while Pausch did not make it to the NFL, he did learn about working hard during practice and finding out how bad you really want to achieve your goal. Another phrase that Pausch came up with is: “Brick walls are there to show how badly we want something”. Often times in life we are faced with challenges that may seem to overwhelm us when we are trying to achieve our goals. We learn that we have to learn how to push through this wall and overcome adversity to achieve our goals. We have to push ourselves if we want to be successful in this world. Nothing in this life comes without working hard for it. As teachers, we have to push our students to push themselves as hard as they can. Most students, in my opinion, don’t realize their full potential until they get out of their comfort zone and try to accomplish something once thought of as impossible. My goal as a teacher and coach is to push my students to be the best they can be. Another important concept Pausch introduces us to is called “head fake”. A head fake, in Pausch’s own words, simply states that the best way to teach someone something is to make them think they are learning something else. For example, take a group of kids to play a game of basketball. They think that they are out there to learn the game and learn the strategies behind it, but in retrospect, they are really learning communication skills and teamwork by speaking to each other on the court and passing the ball around trying to score. Also, by making learning fun helps keep your students engaged on the topic of communication and teamwork without them noticing.

In my opinion, the most important lessons that Pausch teaches us is toward the middle of the second half of his lecture. The first thing is that we cannot be successful in life on our own. We must help others out as much as we can along the way. He believes that karma is real in the fact that we get in return what we give. This means that if we help others out as much as we can, we in turn, will receive help from others when we most need it. He also states that we should not be afraid to ask for help. Second, we should always be honest in everything that we do. Not only should we take credit for the work that we do, we should also admit when we make mistakes. The best way to earn the respect of other people is to be honest. Personally, I like this concept the best. I appreciate when others are honest with me, therefore I must be honest with them to gain mutual respect. The last point Pausch makes is that we should focus on other people, not just ourselves. This is very important to me as a teacher because I will be engaging in young students lives every day at school. My students will look to me for guidance and leadership and it is my personal duty to help them out as best I can each and every day.

I really enjoyed listening to Pausch speak. He is very inspirational and opened my eyes to several key ideas that I can use daily while I teach and coach.