The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture was an amazing speech. Not only was Randy Pausch very entertaining, he was so insightful, especially when it comes to future teachers. The first thing that I noticed about the Last Lecture was the fact that he talked about the "White Elephant" in the room. He just wanted things out in the open, and he knows what everyone was thinking, so why not just bring the subject up? Many people can sense when people are thinking something and they just don't say it and I believe that is was great of him to just put himself out there. I feel that when teachers put themselves out there that is when they get the best result, and I suspect that that is one of the reason Randy Pausch was so successful.

My dad brought me down his book The Last Lecture and I kept telling him that I was going to read it. After watching the actual speech, I decided that I was going to was going to read it and once I picked it up, I couldn’t put it down. The chapters are very short and they are great life lessons for people. Since reading it I have recommended it to many people older and younger, and my dad has picked out certain chapters for my ten year old sister to read and she even likes it. I really liked reading it because you learn so much more about him and his philosophies and why he is the way he is. I was also really interested on learning about his family and how he grew up because that is the foundation of every person.

One of the things that I really appreciated about Pausch after reading his book and watching the lecture was how he handled his students. Just because someone is very intelligent, does not mean that they will automatically be a good teacher, but that was not the case when it came to Randy Pausch. He was a very smart man teaching very bright students, and he always knew how to get the best out of them. Pausch never let his students plateau and that is very respectable. He also used many different techniques to push them instead of just lecturing them that they could do better. If Pausch had not influenced by so many people then the theatre at Carnagie Mellon would not have been packed when he gave his speech.

I could have a conversation about Randy Pausch with someone for hours, which means that this blog could keep on going, but since I do not want to recap the whole book or lecture I will finish with this. The one thing that impressed me most about Pausch was his honesty. In the lecture he was honest about his illness, he showed the slides, and he let everyone know about his diagnosis. In his life he was a very honest husband and son, and in the classroom he was very straightforward with his students. I believe that it is very important that people and students can trust the ones they look up to, and I also believe honesty is the best policy. Pausch represented himself and these qualities very well and that is why he was so successful in many aspects of his life.