Four Distinctions and a Pet Peeve
by
Chris K. Iijima

One of the most helpful things I have learned as a teacher is to try to have something thematic as an organizing principle for each class. That is, have an idea not only of what information you want the students to learn, but how that information fits into the larger picture of what you are trying to teach. It's also important to relate it to other areas you have covered or will cover. For example, if you were going to teach the idea of stare decisis, you might put it into the context of the tension within the law between the need for stability/predictability and the need for flexibility, and how the reinforcement of either value has social consequences. You could then discuss the specific elements of stare decisis by referring to your organizing theme.

Moreover, I have found that having some overall concept of how I wanted to approach a class or course has helped me avoid some common pedagogical pitfalls, which I refer to as Four Distinctions and a Pet Peeve:

• The distinction between "hiding the ball" and challenging students;
• The distinction between lack of focus and being flexible in the classroom;
• The distinction between "war stories" and drawing lessons from experience; and
• The distinction between being a "soft touch" and being compassionate

"Hiding the Ball"

There was nothing more frustrating or aggravating to me as a law student than a professor who I believed was "hiding the ball." That is, a professor who thought that challenging me was the equivalent of playing a game of 20 questions that I could not win. One law professor has described the Socratic method as essentially a "set of games." He describes them as: "Corner" (the professor drives the student into an intellectual corner); "One Up" (the professor is always able to "win" the "dialogue" by evasion or changing contexts); "The Chamber of Horror Gambit" (reducing the student's argument to an absurd conclusion). (Paul N. Savoy, Toward a New Politics of Legal Education, 79 YALE L. J. 444, 457-60 (1970))

I believe that having some general organizing theme allows you to go beyond playing with questions about information and doctrine in the cases. Learning doctrine is and should be relatively easy. The real challenge for student and teacher is to discover together not only "what the case says" but what the case means, by struggling with the implications of questions for which answers are difficult for a teacher or a student. I have found that students associate "hiding the ball" with the former and rarely with the latter - because in the latter, there is no ball to hide - only issues for which there are no definitive answers.

Focusing

The use of a thematic class approach also allows you the flexibility to veer off course occasionally - perhaps prompted by a student's question. You can either relate something in the question to the overall theme of the class, or you can delineate clearly what issues and ideas are central to the lesson and what are collateral. In fact, I have found that if I listen well to a student's question, which at first blush may seem totally unrelated, irrelevant, uninformed, or ill-mannered, I usually can find a nugget of relevance that would allow me to return to the general theme. Unless, of course, the question is irrelevant, uninformed, and ill-mannered. I had a brilliant model when I taught as an instructor in the NYU Law School Lawyering Program. Professor Anthony Amsterdam, after a particularly collateral question, would carefully state, "I think what you're really asking is . . ." and then rephrase the question brilliantly to fit into his general theme. The tension between rigidity on the one hand -- never considering anything outside the given material -- and a lack of a coherent focus on the other is resolved if the teacher can rearticulate and refocus questions back to the original theme.

"War Stories"

I used to love professors who told war stories in class. They are vivid and wonderful insights in the world of law that students hunger for. But there are two kinds of stories based on experience -- those with value that is primarily descriptive and those with value that is more didactic. Both are valuable but are often confused in practice.

There is no worse comment about a law professor than students telling each other that "all he does is tell war stories." Yet, there can be no higher compliment for professors to receive than students telling them that their class is exciting because it includes examples from practice. I think the difference lies in knowing the purpose of the story so that you will be able to utilize it most effectively. Some stories are mostly for entertainment, others to provide an example of a concept, and some are worth structuring discussions around because they highlight important concepts. If you are going to tell a war story, you may want to think about mining it for more than a glancing example of an issue you are discussing. Invariably you will uncover other issues about the value of preparation, about client/attorney interaction, about how various tasks/mistakes/insights interact with one another, or about how to approach life as a lawyer.

"Soft Touch"

The last distinction has to do with classroom management. How do you be considerate and humane without becoming manipulated by your students? Of course, I'm assuming that you want to be a law professor who is considerate and humane. I'm sure most of us don't remember very many from our law school days, but the few who were remain vivid.

I have always believed that I should model the kind of lawyer I want the students to be: firm but flexible. I always tell them that if one needs accommodation, it is always easier to ask for it before something is due. I tell them that I am always willing to discuss a reasonable request to extend a deadline or modify a requirement, but that it will take an emergency to deal with it after the deadline. Most students are very receptive to the idea of not wanting to set an unfair precedent to their classmates, so their expectations are usually modest.

Moreover, if you want to be innovative with curriculum or presentation in the classroom, you should also consider being a different kind of law professor outside the classroom. I have found that students often resent those who attempt to be nontraditional teachers in the classroom but remain aloof and traditional in their other interactions.

"Pet Peeve"

All of which brings me to my Pet Peeve: law practice is not only about the holdings of cases. It is also about adversaries, and clients, and judges, and court personnel, and office staff, and witnesses, and billing, and office space, and finding a private life. Similarly, law teaching is not only about imparting information, it is also about finding those things about what we teach and practice that get us excited -- so that we can, in turn, excite those whom we teach.

I have always believed that law schools are too concerned with doctrine and not concerned enough about the dynamics of policy and people; too focused on getting students to appreciate a result and not focused enough on having them appreciate process; too enamored with the idea that law is about analytical reasoning and not that it is also an activity in which analysis, intuition, creativity, common sense, organization, emotional and intellectual perspective, cultural and political insight, and compassion all interact.

Law and law teaching should not be about only rules and information. They should be about understanding and serving people. We need to find spaces for teaching that fundamental concept to our students in everything we do.