SubscribeOne L: The First Week
This past week I went through my first week of law school, and I really enjoy my professors. They all have credentials from Harvard, Yale, Oxford, and U Mich. But -- none of them fit the rigid, uncompromising stereotype that law profs have, especially that ilk of law profs.
For my first class, our professor walked in with Birkenstocks, took them off, sat Indian-style on the table in front of the class, and started to lecture.
My second class is taught by a young guy from Brooklyn. He's got a serious sarcastic streak, which I'm totally down with. He says he often comes off as abrasive, and that it might be an East Coast / West Coast conflict that a lot of people out here just don't get. I disagree with that, but in any case, I'm all for sarcasm in the classroom; it keeps the material colorful and lively.
My third class really threw me for a surprise. We hadn't yet met this third professor, and he was a visiting from another university, so no upperclassmen had either. We were all justifiably nervous about him a little bit. He came into class dressed in a three piece business suit, was very matter-of-fact, but his rapport with students was funny and engaging. What happened at the end of that first class I was completely unprepared for. He introduced a younger woman, dressed much more ... Haight Ashbury than he was, if you know what I mean. She explained that she is there to teach us Yoga breathing exercises. At one point the whole class was inhaling and exhaling quickly and in unison. It honestly sounded like a bunch of pigs. It took everything I had not to burst out laughing. I've gotta say, though, I was pretty relaxed after doing the exercises.
Our last professor has a very motherly demeanor. She is very warm when she runs class and uses hypothetical cases involving small children. You get the strong impression that she recently dealt with a real situation involving a young boy hitting his sister in the head with a plastic bat. Is the theory of deterrence in play by taking the child's bat away for a number of weeks?
Needless to say, they weren't exactly what I was expecting.
Another thing that I was bracing for was the use of the infamous Socratic Method. The way law school classes are conducted is different from traditional college classes. Instead of a lecture with intermittent questions, profs have seating charts and call on people at random, asking pointed and probing questions about cases we've read. If you aren't prepared, you can be publicly berated and shamed.
The idea is kind of jarring, but when I think about it, I can't really complain. I did the exact same thing in my sixth grade classroom in Mississippi. Most students didn't participate in reviewing homework from science and social studies, leaving it to the few who were on top of their game to answer questions. So, I wrote names on pencils and pulled them at random for answers. I did on occasion berate a student who gave me a completely ridiculous answer. It was just basic reading comprehension, after all. Did I do it to be mean? No. I did it because I knew they were capable of better and wanted them to do better. Did it work? Definitely. That's the idea behind law schools using the method, too.
I guess it's only appropriate that I be subjected to the same sort of scrutiny, right? I haven't been singled out by a professor yet, but for the students that have, I've known most of the answers to questions asked of them. I have volunteered a decent number of times, though, which is something I rarely did in college.
It's really not that bad if you've actually done the reading. The material really isn't that complicated so far; it's just a ton of work. I went literally non-stop from noon on Sunday until 9:00 PM on Wednesday doing work. The only breaks were for food, sleeping, and showering. I'm looking for a way to better space things out right now, and this next week is shaping up decently. But, then again, it looks like the reading load is going to increase a significantly in the next few weeks.
But yeah, I'm pleasantly surprised with things so far.
