Blog Post #6

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams was an inspiring tale of a man who used education to accomplish great acts for students that were directly and indirectly connected with his words. Throughout the video I heard him speak of ways to breakdown barriers with simple strategies. He spoke of smiling, allowing people to realize how brilliant you can be, offering something of value, and being honest. He set his life in motion with such humble goals, but those goals turned his life into one fantastic adventure after another. He was able to work with some of the top professionals in Virtual Reality and work with some top companies in the field, such as Disney's Imagineers.
Randy Pausch spoke on aspects of treating people. What and how we say things to others greatly impacts how we are perceived. He spoke of several examples that set him back in the eyes of peers and mentors, because of his actions or what he had said. I too, have had issues with interactions with peers and mentors. I come off as over barring and a little too direct, lacking tact, which makes me look like a person who is not a team player. Randy lists a few suggestions that could get people to help you (me) in the future, so as to not come off as not a team player. He starts off with, we can't get there alone, meaning we need others help to achieve our goals in life. Tell the truth and be earnest, these according to Randy would be attitudes he respects far more than hipness. Hip will fade away but a truthful earnest worker will not, they will last. He goes on to say, acknowledge when you screw up, admitting when your wrong is a way to learn from your mistakes. The last topic he covered was focus on others, not yourself, in my opinion this can be the hardest attitude to garner. We spend so much time as individuals improving ourselves, so we can be better, we sometimes forget that others make us better. As future teachers we will need students, parents, and other teachers to make us better at educating.
His teachings in this video are great guidelines for new teachers. A constant phrase Randy kept using was, "Brick walls are there for a reason, they let us prove how badly we want things". He continually used that phrase in each obstacle he retold, citing only people that do not want something let those "Brick walls" stop them. As teachers we will run into those walls everyday but it is up to us to tear those walls down. Another theme that is integral to being a good teacher brought up in this video was, include all who want to learn. His teaching were in virtual reality but he opened up his doors to included all who wanted to learn. He was able to broaden his simple course Building Virtual Worlds at Carnegie Mellon University into a great learning experience for all students on campus. He inspired the future of our country. That is important to us as new teachers to inspire students. We could all learn a great deal from how he approached life.
In conclusion the video Randy Pausch Last Lecture:Achieving Your Childhood Dreams is an inspiration to all who want to be in the education field. His legacy is of a man who took something as simple as a smile and courtesy and turned it into a way of being and interacting with others. He was able to open doors that would have normally been closed tightly with his ability to apply some simple steps he had learned throughout his life. He was able to enter into Disney's Imagineers when no one else was allowed. He was able to use virtual reality as a door prop to involve students on campus into his creative world. He was able to inspire all he interacted with on a daily basis. His inspiration lives on in each one of us (the future teachers) who watch his videos and absorb his lessons.