The World Needs Needs More People Like Randy Pausch

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argues that the life of man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”  In a sense, he is right.  I have felt this same, sickened feeling before, such as those occasions when former students have come to tell me goodbye, shortly before leaving to fight in a senseless war.  I’ve also felt it when the world has lost someone absolutely remarkable and much too soon – someone like Dr. Randy Pausch.

It has been a year since I had my students write and present last speeches in the same vein as “The Last Lecture” series, and to date, it is one of the most meaningful assignments I have given.  Many of my students followed Mr. Pausch’s battle throughout the school year, and repeatedly expressed their concern and admiration for him.  In fact, I first learned of his passing from a student email…   

On a more personal note, I have been truly inspired by Pausch’s grace, dignity, and hope.  As a parent of a child with a life-threatening condition, I can attest to the difficulties of having to take things day by day.  There are days spent grieving the loss of “normalcy,” and others dominated by making every minute count.  For me, one of the most amazing things about Pausch is that he didn’t wait until he was given his bleak prognosis to start living, he lived his entire life embracing opportunity, and chasing his dreams.  For many of us in the studio audience, this philosophy of life is so very foreign… we scurry about our lives putting things off till tomorrow that we should have said today… daydreaming of the things we would like to do, but never attempt to make a reality…  

Now, compare Hobbes’ philosophy of life with Pausch’s.  Pausch would argue that Hobbes is ultimately quite mistaken, and I would have to agree with him.  The solitariness, brutality, and nastiness of life most certainly exists in our world, but it will never surpass the power of the human spirit, the beauty of hope, or what we choose to do with them.

Reflections on A Separate Peace, chapters 1-2…

Today, I had lunch with my lifelong best friend, in the middle of a hot, summer park full of carnival-goers.  The park was incredibly crowded, with the smell of funnel cakes and corndogs permeating the summer air as it echoed with the bellowing voice of an MC.  We sat at a round table with white resin chairs, sharing it with another family we did not know.  It seems almost customary and normal at events such as these…  In one sense it seemed odd to have our children with us.  It wasn’t long ago when she and I were two of the tanned middle school girls, skipping past our parents and giggling about cute boys as they tried to win prizes from the local vendors.  I distinctly remember carrying as many cheaply stuffed animals as my arms could carry…

As I sat there, my mind drifted back to the summer reading I assigned my students… Every time I reread this novel, it brings a new sense of self-awareness.  Modern students are sometimes confused by the Platonic relationship between Phineas and Gene, unable to relate to the breadth and depth of their friendship, or the envy and mutual admiration that solidifies the bond between them.  For me, the novel was always so close to my own adolescent experience… my best friend always more extroverted and self-assured, with me trailing behind wishing I possessed one ounce of her self-confidence. 

Mid-lunch, she looked across the table and said, “Can you believe how insanely hot it is today?  Do you remember when we used to steal your mom’s car and drive it to the pool because it was too hot to ride our bikes?”  She recalled how we always had it back in time to cool down before my mother returned home from work. Naturally, I remembered…  I had watched my mom hide the keys to our spare vehicle in a printed eyeglasses case, which she tucked neatly inside a dresser drawer.  My mother only found out about the car stealing after the birth of my first child…

I smiled and laughed at Leigh Ann’s recollection of our summer delinquency.  She was definitely the Phineas of our duo.  In many, many ways, she always will be.  As we packed up to leave, I looked at our children and questioned- which one of the two would my daughter be??  I also made a mental note about hiding my keys…

Virtual Reality Magazine

 Ran across this site, Virtual Reality Magazine , and thought I’d give it a quick namecheck.  The current edition (Issue 28) includes incredible panoramas from Chernobyl, but users can just as easily switch to a rotating index which includes both real world and virtual world stories/scenes (and reviews of these worlds).  The layout is incredible; it sort of reminds me of the graphics used in Minority Report, for some reason…  At any rate, it’s definitely worth checking out.  :)

Project Update

Well, like most of you, I am very happy with how my project has shaped.  At first, I wanted to put the projects in the hands of the students… It seemed like such a great idea to have mine and Lexie’s students working together!  In hindsight, I’ll know next time not to trust my students with my final project!  In all fairness, the shift from student-to-teacher completion wasn’t their faults, more like a Lemony Snickett’s series of unfortunate events.  One of the first days I’d scheduled my students to work on it was interrupted by a fire drill.  Rats.  Then, a week ago we lost a student in a car wreck, and two class periods were used for grief counseling.  This was followed by two snow days, and two days of my absence due to professional development.  Needless to say, our project quickly changed from a student designed wiki, to a teacher designed wiki.  In investigating some of the free wiki sites, I found that many have nice plug-in features for collaboration,  but they are aesthetically quite busy.  I prefer more of a clean look to a webpage myself, and this was hard to get used to.  However, I think the overall utility of the wiki sites out there beat what they lack in appearance.  I hope that our final product is one that our colleagues will find useful, one that will clear up some ambiguity of what constitutes fair use, etc.

Bragging Like They’re My Children…

You know, I think I blogged about the video contests my students entered, but I never uploaded copies of their projects. So… I opened a YouTube account, and uploaded their entries, so I could embed them here. I’m really proud of them, if you weren’t picking up on that. The first video is their submission for the Voices Of Innovation contest. They had 45 seconds to respond to the prompt concerning how innovation is improving their world. The second video is their entry for Apple’s Insomnia Film Contest. For this contest, Apple announced a list of elements (including character names, props, etc), and from the time of the announcement, student groups had 24 hours to create a three minute masterpiece. Our students used- a bird cage, park bench, character line “Don’t tempt me” and the character name Robin Darjeeling (featured on business card in pawn shop). All-nighters are hard to pull off when you’re a thirty something….

Pausch Inspired Speeches

This week, my students started presenting the speeches they’d written after watching the Pausch video embed in an early entry.  They should finish up on Tuesday, and this may sound strange, but these have been some of the fastest school days I’ve ever taught.  Some time ago, I wrote an entry about the importance of knowning your students.  Even after half a school year, I am floored by some of the things I learn about these children.  One student, who I don’t think has spoken more than five sentences aloud in class all year, spoke about the loss of an older brother and the importance of not taking family for granted.  Another student revealed that she’d never met her father, and her mother left her to be raised by her grandparents when she was two years old.  And yet ANOTHER student shared how he was crumbling under the pressure of being the sole bread winner in his family; he hoped his mom would soon give him legal permission to drop out of school so he could sleep.  Oh yeah, these are all 10th grade students.  Meeting the needs of students, and providing them with the tools they need to succeed, is more than a test score.  For many kids, it’s the one ticket out of generational poverty.  As I reflect over the things I’ve learned, and the tools I hope to pass on to my students, this is always in the back of my mind.  Technology has really leveled the playing field… and now lots of kids have a chance to bat.

Last Lectures

On September 21st, 2007, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch gave his last lecture.  At only 46, Pauch’s retirement was not by choice, but brought on as a result of his battle with pancreatic cancer.  Originally, “The Last Lecture Series” was an event where invited professors imparted their knowledge to others as if it were the last opportunity they’d have to do so.  The main difference with Pausch’s lecture is that he is in fact dying of cancer, and at the time of the video, he’d been given an estimate of three to six months.  His lecture is entitled “How To Live Your Childhood Dreams”, and is most definitely worth watching.   Some of the things he said really made an impression on me, such as “experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted” and “brick walls aren’t made to keep you out, but to show you how bad your really want things… they’re for the other people.”  Recently, his story has been covered on Oprah and ABC News, and Pausch has quickly gone from beloved not only by his students, but also revered by students from all over the nation.Today, my students finished up watching the last of the 1 hour 44 minute video (included introductions, closing remarks, etc), and are now creating their own last speeches.   As I encourage them to reflect on their lives in their writing, I am concurrently reflecting on my own life as an educator.  I’m convinced that he’s right – this really is the best job in the world. This video is a segment from the ABC News episode. 

It’s A Good Day…

I got the official word last night, I passed National Standards Board Certification! I’m pretty certain I did the notorious Tom Cruise Couch Dance. For anyone interested, it is an awesome program, and there are lots of perks for Kentucky teachers. Out of all my years of teaching, the year I spent working on NBPTS was the year I experienced the most growth. Now, back to projects, projects and more projects…

“A Vision Of Students Today” by Michael Wesch & KSU students…

Very intriguing video…  

Final Semester Project

For my journalism students’ final project (working in conjunction with Lexie Centers’ students for project), they will create a wiki that that outlines what is considered fair use/copyright infringement.  Students will use PBwiki, or similar site in conversing with Lexie’s classes via “Yack Pack”- the chat option within the site.  This will allow the groups to hash out some of the logistics in real time.  Ultimately, the sites can be used by both high schools as a resource for all teachers and students, and can be linked to the respective school’s websites.  Various methods of assessment will apply, from participation between classes, quality of research and writing, and finally, the completed wikis.  I’m sure we will have to tweak a few things along the way, but I’m hopeful that it will be a meaningful experience for both schools.