Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

As I watched this lecture, I had to admire someone for speaking in front of so many people and do it with such poise and grace. The composure that he had, under very trying and difficult times, was amazing. But he didn't focus on this, he focused on the positive and that's admirable. The first thing I noticed in his speech was that he was very well prepared and comfortable with his material. He kept eye contact with the audience and even made personal references making the lecture more personal and inviting to the audience. He spoke about the use of indirect learning and I hope as a teacher I can use these techniques to make learning something not seam like your learning something. That is a great talent if you can do it well and I think Randy did.

The tenacity of Randy Pausch is obvious and that is what got him to where he was. He called it determination but no matter what you call it it is shared by those who achieve success. Every great leader has had it and every great educator has it. The ability to take dreams and turn them into reality takes this skill. When road blocks are put up in front of you in the pursuit of your dreams and they will then that road becomes a challenge and not a defeat unless you let it. He had a dream of the virtual reality classes and he made them happen. He knew that to be successful in a class like that creative license had to be taken. He fought for that because for most schools that is not what they want. They like structure with locked in plans, anything else is very scary for them. But I know from experience as an artist that you can't be dictated to and be creative. You must think for yourself and make mistakes and learn from those mistakes, otherwise you won't learn. Randy knew that and conveyed that to his students.

Creativity unlocks childlike wonders and creativity invents new ideas and inventions and is what allows us to evolve. Creativity is needed to learn to help others. I mean to really help others you have to see a vision of success in what you are doing. There will always be more than one way to accomplish something and an open mind will allow the discovery of new ways. I think Randy encouraged that creativity so that his students could achieve more than they thought possible to achieve. That negative bar was missing. The thing that we use to stop our growth, that thing that keeps everything safe because there is no risk involved, that is what stops us from achieving if we let it.

So, I think that we shouldn't let it,(that crazy bar), stop us. I believe that that was what Randy was trying to say. He said look what we can do if we just let it happen and don't set limits. This is what happens when we let our minds expand and give it freedom to create. To nurture this idea is one of the greatest gifts that a teacher can give to their students. Students can and usually learn more in self directed education settings and I think that we need those settings more and more in classrooms.