Blog Post 6

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dream


"When you're screwing up and nobody's saying anything to you anymore, that means they've given up."

Randy Puasch had a lot to say in his Last Lecture, but these four things stood out to me the most. This first quote was from his experience on his high school football team, the closest he got to achieving his dream of being in the National Football League. His coach was riding him one practice, and another member of his team told him that it was a good thing--because when you've reached the point that no one is commenting on your screw-ups and trying to help you, you've reached an ultimate low. I can't just promise to never do that to a student of mine--I have to make sure that no student of mine ever comes close to a point where I would give up on them. It's my job to teach them, so I'll keep criticizing and trying to get them to learn the material as long as they're receptive to it.


"You can do better."

This anecdote was one of my favorites. Randy Pausch was speaking about a course he had taught, one that was brand new, never done before, in which students paired up into five groups and, for two weeks, worked on creating a virtual reality world. At the end of the first two weeks, he was blown away by what they'd created, and didn't know what to do next. There was no precedent for the course. So he called his old mentor and asked what he should do. His teacher told Randy that, the next time he went into the class, he should tell them that they'd done some good stuff, but he knew they could do better. I thought this was wonderful. How else do you push people to do better than their best? You tell them that you know they can do better. It may seem a little mean not to tell them right off that they did amazing work, but it will motivate them. They'll think to themselves, "That was amazing, and he just calls it "good"? I'm going to astound him next time." It will make them want to be better, to give 120%. What better way to motivate kids to work harder?


"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted" and "brick walls are there for a reason."

Brick walls separate those who merely want something from those who are determined to get it. When you can't get past that brick wall, at least you'll learn from it. It's something important that kids should learn, and, while they think they understand the concept, they might be surprised with how little they do. Because brick walls aren't just meant to weed out the weak from the strong, it also teaches you a little about yourself. You realize what your own priorities are when you find your brick wall and determine how willing you are to surmount it. If you want something bad enough to fight for it, you realize how important this is to you.

When I was a drama major, we were required to audition for shows every semester. I was pretty awful at it, and the only way to get better is to practice. Which I didn't do. Theater turned out to be something I didn't want all that much after all, and I realized this when I couldn't get past simple auditions. I've been in plays before, and auditioned before, but it's different when you're doing it in front of professionals rather than high school teachers, and I messed up a lot. I realized it because it wasn't a wall I was willing to work to get past. But this class is. Because this major is what I want, because it will help me along to my ultimate goal. So if kids understood this, they could learn to take advantage of it, to determine what they consider most important in their own lives.


"And that is the best gift an educator can give is to get somebody to become self-reflective."

In that same class in which he'd split the students into groups, he measured how easy students considered it to work with each other and graphed it. Some students were, of course, considered better group mates than others, and when you see where you stand among your classmates in terms of how likable and easy too work with you are, you realize you need to step it up a notch, especially if you're at the bottom. If I could get my students to become friendlier, better people, that would be amazing--because that's not necessarily in the job description of a teacher--you don't have to improve their ability to socialize. And just flat out telling them that they're not very good when working in teams isn't helpful unless you can get them to think about it themselves and how they stack up against others. When they come to the realization on their own, they're much  more likely to try to change themselves.