Blog Assignment #6

“I’m dying, and I am still having fun,” was my favorite quote from Randy Pausch’s last lecture. In this lecture the theme of his talk was how to live your life by learning from your dreams, helping others achieve theirs, and most importantly have fun doing it.

When children have fun while they are learning something hard, they learn without realizing it. As Randy Pausch called it, it is a “head fake.” One of his major topics in his lecture was about a class he taught that was all project based. He said his students surprised him by doing exceptionally well. He had no clue what to do. After talking to his mentor, he told them, “That was good but you can do better.” By telling them this, they continued to succeed and go passed the limits he had imagined. By hearing this I learned that as a teacher you do not know what limit any child has. So, push them to do better, and hopefully, they will push themselves to do better in the future.

He also talked about “brick walls.” When you go out and try to reach a goal and run into a brick wall do not give up. “Brick walls are there to let us prove how badly we want something.” If you just give up then obviously you did not want it that bad. Find out what is needed to improve on the skills you need to continue. This is something I would like to portray to my students. No matter how many brick walls you run into there will be a way to crawl over them.

“Decide if you are a Tigger or an Eeyore.” For a long time in my life I was an Eeyore. I finally met a very special friend who is a Tigger. She is always smiling and full of energy and I thought, “I want to be like her! I want to be a person others want to be around.” So, I began forcing myself to smile. The longer I smiled the easier it was to do it for no reason. I am no longer a negative person like I used to be, and I like myself better for it now. It is definitely more fun being a Tigger.”

“Don’t lose your child like wonder.” If you are around a group of young children you will notice they ask about everything! If they do not know what it is or how it works they will ask. In this day and age, people are afraid of being wrong or looking “stupid” because they asked. Be like a child and ask questions when you do not know the answers. We should be learning constantly throughout our lives.

Lastly, “Find the best in everybody: no matter how long you have to wait for them to prove it.” More often than not teachers get information about the incoming class from the teachers who have already had them. All too often teachers have already made up their minds about a certain student or two. I want to be sure I give all of my students the chance to show me who they are themselves rather than taking word from other. I want to believe in each and every one of them, and let them prove even to themselves what they are capable of.

At the end of the lecture Randy Pausch revealed that this lecture was for his own children. He knew his life was coming to an end do to the cancerous tumors in his body. He will forever be in my heart, and I will do my best to stick to his advice even though it was not for me but for his own children.