Blog Assignment #7: Video Responses

Randy Paush's Last Lecture
     "If you had one last lecture to give before you died, what would it be?" This was quoted by Randy Paush at the very beginning of his lecture. What did he decide would be his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University on September 18, 2007? He chose to lecture on truly achieving childhood dreams. This may seem like an odd topic to present at someone's final hoo-rah, but if you know the back story behind Professor Paush's lecture, then it doesn't seem so odd. Professor Paush has approximately ten tumors in his liver and was given about six months to live.
     Before Professor Pauch goes into his own dreams as a child, he shows pictures of his childhood and he made mention to the fact that there wasn't a single picture in which he wasn't smiling. Paush says that enjoying childhood and dreaming was easy for him. He says for children, "the inspiration and permission to dream is huge." He then goes into his personal childhood dreams. These included being in zero gravity, being Captain Kirk, authoring an article in the World Book encyclopedia, winning stuffed animals, and so on. Professor Paugh goes into detail with each one of his dreams, and I thought that his dream on playing in the NFL was especially important, because it was the dream that he never achieved, but got the most out of. He told a story of one day at practice where the coach was riding him pretty hard, saying that he was doing everything wrong. After practice, one of his teammates told him that it was a good thing, because it means that he hasn't given up on you yet. I can relate to this personally, because I was very athletic in high school and I experienced this first hand from my own coaches. I also thing that is good to keep in mind as a teacher, because as long as we have faith in our students that they CAN and are willing to learn, we will never give up on them.
     Later in his teaching career, he gave his students in a high technology class a two week assignment similar to what he did on the Imagineer VR Project that he did for Disney's Aladin. He wasn't sure as to what the results would be, because his students were undergrads and their technology was a weaker version of what he had for his VR project. But his mind was blown when his students came back with some of the most amazing pieces of work. He didn't know what to tell his students about their works, so after advice from his mentor, he told his students "you can do better." His class did exactly that -they improved and did better on every other assignment that was given to them. I think that this is amazing to think about --having a teacher have that much influence on a child's life that they WANT to do better for him or her. Each student put all of what they had into their projects and it came out amazingly. By the end of the semester, roommates, other students, and even parents were showing up on presentation day. I think this is something to strive for when you become a teacher. When you have parents and other students not even in your class showing up on presentation day, it shows that you had an impact on that class in some way or another.
     The last portion of Randy Pauch's lecture includes the lessons learned. He tells of things that he has learned within his years of experience, and why they're important. He says that you can learn from many people -you can learn from your parents, teachers, colleagues, friends, and even students. This was true when one of his students questioned his Alice Project, which in turn, made him question it. Another lesson learned came from advice that was given to him by a colleague. The colleague said, "teach the importance of having fun." With this, Randy asks,

"Are you a Tigger or are you an Eeyore?"

 I think this is a very important concept to keep in mind. Randy Pauch has terminally ill cancer, but he is still staying positive and having fun doing what he does. To me, that is inspiring. Randy also tells his audience to never lose the child-like wonder within and you can't get anywhere alone. An earnest quality is long term and a hip quality is short term, so keep with the earnest and good karma will come your way. This is true when he told of his non-acceptance into Carnegie Mellon University. He had to rely on his mentor to get him a meeting with Nico of Carnegie Mellon, which turned out in his favor, because he was then accepted into graduate school there and became what he is today. Finally, Randy Pauch threw in his twist. He said that this last lecture was not about how to achieve your childhood dreams, but it was about how to live your life. And it also was not for you, but it was for his kids. I think this was one of the most inspirational lectures ever to be given by any professor at any college.