Have you figured out the second head fake?

Fellow SMED learners, by now you must have figured out the second head fake or you are just too literally minded and unwilling to learn. Our Media Studies lecturer, Marian Pike, has cleverly enforced blog topics of a “head fake” nature. What is this “head fake” you ask? Well if you want to know then let me explain...


It all has to do with a computer science professor named Randy Pausch, who was a brilliant  lecturer at Carnegie Mellon. He was diagnosed with cancer and before he died he was asked to do a last lecture. Randy’s last lecture topic was “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. Prof. Pausch spoke about seizing every moment, overcoming obstacles and achieving one’s dreams. At the end of the lecture he asked, “Did you figure out the head fake?” He followed by saying, “It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you. Did you figure out the second head fake?”

When people showed confusion at this question, he explained what he meant by “head fake”...“Most of what we learn, we learn indirectly (by head fake)” and “The best way to head fake someone in education, is to have them learn something while they think they are learning something else”. Basically a “head fake” is something with an indirect message or lesson to be learnt. It involves being taught something without knowing what you are being taught.

I realized Marian’s “head fake” nature of the blog topics she gave us after researching some weird topics, such as “How to step from a 100 foot pole”. Taken literally, it makes no sense but research showed that it was in fact an ancient Zen teaching called a Koan. Indirectly I had been taught something! Bingo Marian, you definitely know how to make us think and learn indirectly!