Blog Post #10

Randy Paush's Last Lecture
After watching Randy Pausch's Last Lecture video, my first thought was of Tim McGraw's song 'Live Like You Are Dying'. The video struck so many nerves, that I truly had to reflect on my own life. The video helped me to realize that my troubles, no matter how hard they may be, are not the end of the world. What a powerful lecture.
We were asked in our blog question, to identify what Randy Pausch says about teaching and learning. To me, Randy did not list any particular teaching and learning styles in his lecture, he simply allows us to pick out throughout his lecture, the teaching and learning moments. He did this by discussing three points: childhood dreams, enabling dreams of others and through lessons learned: How you can achieve your dreams or enable the dreams of others.

The part of Randy's lecture that deals with achieving your dreams, dealt with his bucket list. He shared with the audience how he achieved his dreams. He lets us know that achieving your dreams is not easy, but with the help of others, they are definitely attainable. My take on this lecture, is that if we have dreams, we can never give up on them. Randy tells us in so many words, that we have to depend on others to help us attain our dreams. Randy makes it very clear, that we should go for our dreams no matter how hard they may seem. He believes that if they are not attained, we did our best to try to make them come true. I believe this teachable moment tells us to push our students and not allow them to take the easy way out. He makes this point clear when he speaks of his class turning in outstanding assignments and him still asking them for more. Lesson learned, push our students to their highest potential and challenge them to reach for the stars.

Another lesson we should teach our students, is Indirect Learning, so he did point out a couple of learning styles. I too think Indirect Learning has to take place before anything else. Teaching a student integrity, hope, respect and fearlessness should be taught first. Head Fake Learning is also a way we should teach our students. I believe this is how my teachers helped me learn; they gave me fun ways to figure out complicated problems; making me believe I was having fun, when I was really learning something hard. Giving a child a task and allowing them to figure it out through ways that do not feel too complicated, is when meaningful learning takes place.

Randy believes that teaching can come from everywhere and be learned from anyone. Learning should come from students, teachers, parents, everyone. He believes a teacher should give students the reign to explore their imagination and we as teachers should help them to explore it. Teachers should be able to teach to different people and that a good teacher should always be able to think like a child. I guess he means that a good teacher caters to the audience they are teaching. Other useful advice that will be useful to me as a new teacher is: to be loyal, the students advocate, not a know-it-all and be apologetic when necessary. I believe he is telling us to win our students over and we will have their respect for life. I also believe he wants us to teach our students as early as possible, in hopes that learning becomes a part of them.

Again, this was a very powerful video. It is so powerful, that I watched the 40 minute interview with Randy and Diane Sawyer. I also went back and read my blog post #1 on Randy. I did not realize his condition at the time, but after this blog/lesson, I understand blog #1 much better. Brick walls are there to weed out the people who really do not want something bad enough. A person wanting something enough, will tear down the brick wall. Well said Mr. Pausch, a great deal of respect is owed to Mr. Randy Pausch and his Last Lecture video. He is a hero in my book and I intend on being a 'Tigger Teacher' in my future classroom. If you haven't watched Randy Pausch's Last Lecture here's the video,