Blog Assignment #10

"You just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore."

I watched Randy Pausch’s last lecture video as well as read the official transcript on his lecture. This way I was able to have a better understanding of what he was discussing. I really enjoyed the lecture that Randy gave. He opened his lecture with a great attitude and audience engaging humor.

He talked about how you should always be a Tigger in life. By saying this, he meant to never loose your childlike wonder and to have fun with every aspect of your life. Although Dr. Pausch only had three to six months to live, he didn’t let that stop him from living his life to the fullest. By him keeping a positive attitude and having his childlike wonder, he was able to keep his dreams alive and strive forward to the things ahead. For children, they believe they can do anything and set their goals as high as they can imagine. We should always try and let the child inside of us come out so that we don’t set limits to our dreams. Pausch taught a class at Carnegie Mellon University that was a project based learning class. He said that "The best way to teach somebody something, is to have them think that they're learning something else." I think this is a great view for teaching students.

In Dr. Pausch’s lecture, he also spent a lot of time discussing dreaming. Everyone has dreams, especially when we were younger. Dr. Pausch never gave up on his dreams, though. By bringing in life stories, Pausch was able to keep the audience interested in what was being said. He describes all the dream that ran through his head as a child such as: Being in zero gravity, playing in the National Football League, authoring an article in the World Book Encyclopedia, being Captain Kirk, winning stuffed animals, and being an Imagineer.He stated that it is important to have specific dreams to go after. He continued to reach for them until he experienced each of them in a way that satisfied him. When you have a dream, you have to have the mindset that one day they will actually happen and you must keep striving for them, even when the going gets tough. As a teacher, we will have students come to us with dreams that only they could imagine. We must encourage them to never stop chasing their dreams and to never give up on them. When assisting students in reaching their goals, we are helping them take knowledge outside of the classroom and chase their dreams in the real world. We can help them to turn their dreams into reality. Dr. Pausch also talks about a “head fake”. This is the concept of teaching you students a certain game or activity, but in reality they are learning life lessons from it. In these situations, the task is not really about the activity but more about learning teamwork, social skills, or anything else that could be helpful to a child as they grow up.

I learned a lot from Randy about teaching and learning. He let his students create and learn in a way that they enjoyed what they were doing. He gave his students an interesting project and let them be in control which lead to amazing results for the projects. We must learn from our failures and mistakes in order to learn to do things correctly. One example in doing this would be to learn to take criticism well and improve with the advice that is given to us. As teachers, we have to know the right way to give criticism so that it still encourages our students to improve. I thought Randy Pausch did an excellent job delivering his lecture by keeping the topic light and by keeping the audience interested in what was being said.

This lecture was very inspiring to me as a future teacher. In my life, I have had several teachers, friends, and family members encourage me to never give up on my dreams. Without them, I wouldn’t be here at the University of South Alabama on my way to becoming an elementary teacher. We have to teach our kids to follow their dreams and allow them to learn by doing fun tasks that let their imaginations go wild. Dr. Pausch reminding me how important it will be as an educator to do the same for my future students. This lecture was given on September 18, 2007 and he lost his fight to cancer in July 2008. He gave so much encouragement through this lecture and will continue to make a difference in peoples lives through it.

"The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough."