Blog Assignment 7

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch


        My initial thoughts when Mr. Pausch explained how he was dying from cancer were, how can he be so stable talking about his life?  He is so positive even though he knows he is going to die.  I know I would be tearing up every few minutes if I had to give that speech.  It really makes me admire Mr. Pausch all the more because of his high spirits.
        When Mr. Pausch was explaining his childhood dreams and whether or not he achieved each one, the advice one of his coach's gave him after Mr. Pausch had been worked really hard at practice one day stuck with me.  He said, "When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they gave up."  I have never thought of it that way, but it is very true.  The pushing of others is what keeps us going.  He also explained how when we let our children play on teams at school, it is not all about being great at the sport but about learning good sportsmanship, persevering, and working towards a goal.  Mr. Pausch calls this "head fake" learning.  "Head fake" learning is telling a story or having someone do an activity that they think is for fun, but really a lesson is learned from it all.  
        Later, Mr. Pausch described his dreams of being an Imagineer for Disney.  He was turned down the first time and he explained that, "brick walls are not there to hold us back but to show us how bad we want something."  Later, he got to live his dream when he got the chance to work on a virtual reality project for Disney.  
        When Mr. Pausch was trying to get sabbatical so he could go and do this project with Disney, he went to the Dean of the college he was currently working at and asked about it.  The Dean of his department basically got angry because he did not know about what Mr. Pausch was talking about and did not want to learn more about it.  Then he went to the Dean of Sponsored Research who also knew nothing about this sabbatical but had a positive attitude about the situation and asked to learn more.  This is a really good lesson to apply to life.  We do not know everything, but we should always be open to learning more instead of being close-minded.  When Mr. Pausch talked about the virtual reality class he created where students produced projects every two weeks, he explained how he was blown away by how good the first projects were.  Instead of telling them how amazing they were, he told them, "This is great, but I know you can do better."  Thus making them work even harder and pushing them to use the best of their abilities.  This is a good principle that I would like to apply in my classroom one day.

Above is a picture of a sign that is placed at the Mad Teacup Party Ride at 
Walt Disney World.  (As many times as I have been, I have never seen it, 
so I will have to look for it the next time I go.)

        Mr. Pausch ends his video by revealing the two "head fakes" of the lecture.  The lecture was not about achieving your childhood dreams or a lecture for his audience (though in my opinion it was).  It was about how to lead your life and to give Mr. Pausch's kids the story of their father's life.  I think that partly why Mr. Pausch was so at ease about his short time left on earth was that he had realized how much he had accomplished in such a short time.  He had developed his own class and the College of Entertainment Technology.  He had created computer programming software, helped build Disney Quest, changed the lives of his students, achieved all of his childhood dreams, and had a wife and kids.  Even though he passed away, I think his presence will always be felt.  All of the students he taught will remember him and continue his legacy.