OPINION
10 Obiter Dicta
Of Mice and Pen
michael motala › contributor
F
or at least as long as The Paper Chase has
been an element of our popular imagination,
it seems there have been two dominant features of the first year law school curriculum:
the case book and the Socratic method. Does this signature pedagogical approach really teach first years
to “think like a lawyer?” Or is it an ineffective and
antiquated form of teaching? Might it even be, as critics suggest, an “infantilizing […] tactic for promoting hostility and competition among students” that is
“self-serving, and destructive of positive ideological
values?”
Little did I realize the first semester of contracts,
criminal law, and torts was at once the debut of the
methodology as well as its pedagogical zenith. As soon
as I had adjusted to the pace of question-and-answer
based on hypothetical or case, by second semester,
it seemed to diminish in discursive quality. Partly to
blame are the students—exhausted by overwhelming readings and assignments, falling behind in the
library, and distracted by Facebook and the daily news
while in class. There are also the “gunners” who dominate the question-and-answer, evidently prepared,
drowning out the rest, and certain to elicit schadenfreude among their peers when they inevitably blunder. Everyone knows the quiet ones do the best on
exams anyway.
Equally, the professors are to blame. Some have
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