Blog Post 6

Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture



Randy Pausch gave his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon College on Achieving your childhood dreams. This was his last lecture because soon after he died of liver cancer. Although his lecture was over an hour long it was very entertaining and I got a lot out of the video. He talks about what he calls a "Brick Wall" which is what causes people to stop from obtaining their goals. Brick walls show just how much determination and dedication one person has to reaching a goal they have set for them self. And as a PE teacher and possibly football coach I would use this little example to show my students that there are other ways to get your goals or activities done. "When your screwing up and no one is saying anything to you anymore that means they gave up on you." This stuck out to me in a big way because so many teachers give up on their students and do not push them anymore. I don't want to be one of those teachers. I want my kids to be able to turn to me and know that I'm going to tell them what they are doing is wrong or right and how to fix it.

Randy talks about how it is important not to place a bar on your class. I agree with this completely. If you place a bar and the students know where that bar is they will only work to meet the bar and not over it. They will just do enough to slide by and not have to put forth an effort. If you don't place a bar on them and just tell them stuff like I know you can do better, and such then they will push them selves to do better on the next assignment. Encouraging your students to do better each time will allow them to see what they are actually capable of doing.

Let your student's creativity shine and don't put it down. Creativity is the most important part of a student because it lets them express themselves. Plus creativity is what most students use to solve problems. With my students I would encourage creativity to allow them to see how creativity they can be and for me to show them that they have pushed their creativity beyond what they could have imagined.

Goals are what makes you into the person you are. I would express this to my students in the fact that its not what the goal is, but they journey you take to obtaining that goal. Live your life to the fullest and never let anything "brick walls" get in your way. If my students learn that what you learn and the experiences you have on their journeys is what makes them into the person they will be. Randy Pausch talked about all this items and more but these are the ones that stuck out to me and as a future teacher I'm going to make sure I get this ideas across to my students.