Blog Assignment #10

What Can We Learn About Teaching and Learning From Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. On September 18, 2007, Randy Pausch gave his last lecture.

After watching "Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream," it was very inspiring. He begins talking about his "childhood dreams" and how he achieved or came close to achieving those dreams. It was amazing to me how he spent living his life trying to achieve his childhood dreams. When he started talking about those dreams, I started thinking to myself. I could not remember any of my childhood dreams, or even if I had any. Every time I try to think about it, all I see is a blur. I can not even remember one thing I wanted to do when I was a kid and now that I think about it, I do not think many kids now know either. He also talks about the many people he has met and the people who have made him who he is today.

One of the things he discussed that stuck out to me most was "head fake." "Head fake" is when the student learning thinks that they are learning something else. The example that Randy Pausch used is "Kids make movies and games; the "head fake" is that they are learning to program." From other videos that I have watched, such as "Brian Crosby - Back to the future," I have noticed both have similar ways of teaching. You give students fun assignments that get them interested while teaching them what they need to know and they forget that they are even learning. In Brian Crosby's video, he used the balloon project to teach his students about the layers of the atmosphere without them knowing. I really like this way of teaching. The cliche of a teacher standing at the front of the room lecturing and students in their seats taking notes should not exist anymore. We should be making learning fun for our students. Make them forget that they are learning at all. This idea is to help students have fun while learning something hard.

I think the message Randy Pausch was trying to get across is that to achieve what you want, you need to learn how to get there. You need to have dreams and goals and some sort of path to get you where you want to be. Allow kids to be kids. Allow them to dream, imagine, create, fantasize, and let them do what they please as long as it does not harm them in any way.

I learned a lot from Randy Pausch. How to teach kids while having them think that they are not learning anything. How to keep dreams alive and believe that anything is possible. He achieved his dreams, why can't we?