The Observation Deck

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the OTHER people.”

-Randy Pausch, “The Last Lecture”, Sept. 18, 2007 (click here)

After being diagnosed with incurable liver cancer, Carnegie Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch gave his “Last Lecture” ten years ago tomorrow at CMU. Called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice on how to achieve one’s own career and personal goals, something at which Randy was extraordinarily adept.

Now maybe I’m a little over-enthusiastic, but in my opinion The Last Lecture may be the most valuable hour and 15 minutes I have ever spent listening to someone else. There are literally dozens of inspirational nuggets to be found. The best compilation of quotes from the lecture can be found by clicking here. My favorite is the one above, the last couple lines of which I have repeated to my daughters on several occasions because they both have listened to the whole lecture, know of my fondness for it and occasionally need a bit of motivation. (We all do.) Don’t forget to click “next” to successive pages. If you do you won’t be able to resist watching the lecture.

The lecture is particularly valuable IMO for parents of very young children. To wit….

”There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. Self esteem is not something you can give; it's something they have to build. (My youth sports coach) worked in a “no-coddling zone.” Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.”

In fact in the final 30 seconds Randy unveils the lecture’s final “head fake.” The Last Lecture is not intended for his audience that evening. It’s intended for his children, for when they get a little bit older, when Randy won’t be around to mentor them personally. Just terrific....

Find an hour and 15 minutes and watch the lecture. Join the 20 million others who have viewed it. You won’t regret it….

“There can be no greater stretch of arbitrary power than to seize children from their parents, teach them whatever the authorities decree they shall be taught, and expropriate from the parents the funds to pay for the procedure.”

-Isabel Paterson, from “The God of the Machine” (1943)

Government schooling demonstrates how apathetic we’ve become. Which is putting it politely. It’s outrageous that they can take our money and our kids and “teach” them whatever they want. Unless of course one is willing to fork over an additional $250,000 or more per child for their K-12 education. Or homeschool. Then you have some latitude to determine what and how your child learns. Though you have to pay twice.

Were the government school model to be applied to healthcare (e.g. the government takes much of our money and tells us what doctor we can use, then tells that doctor what treatments he/she can and cannot offer), there would be screaming from the rooftops. So why do we tolerate that of our K-12 educational system?

All of which would be somewhat tolerable if we were getting good results. But it’s quite the opposite. The every-three-year PISA study (click here) concluded that the US continues to fall farther behind in childhood education, especially in mathematics. Chinese 15-year-olds are now four years ahead of U.S. 15-year-olds in math, on average, according to the study. How is that remotely tolerable? And even that presumes that “good results” manifest primarily in “subject matter” mastery. I think that’s simplistic and leaves other very desirable outcomes unaddressed. But that’s a topic for another time….

"at this rate I will never be an analyst"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWE78owXPdU&t=783s

“Comrades!” he cried. “You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? …. The whole management and organization of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink the milk and eat those apples.”

-George Orwell, Animal Farm

Seems apropos these days….