I've posted many times on the cost of legal education (here and here, for example) but fewer times on the process of legal education, that is, what goes on in the classroom (see my post "Zombie Education" here). But here's a link to an excellent short post titled "Vain Repetition?" and is a brief review of Micah Watson's
"Neo vs. The Karate Kid." It's posted under the rubric of “Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Public Good,”which struck me as particularly apropos of legal education.
In brief, the "Vain Repetition" contrasts two modes of learning and their corresponding notions of what it means to be human. The first, drawn from the Matrix trilogy, implies that learning is at its best the downloading of information directly to the brain; human body optional. The second, from the first Karate Kid movie, demonstrates learning as a deeply interpersonal and intensely physical process; a distinctively human process. Knowing "that" vs. knowing "how."
Even when face-to-face, legal education, like most education in America, tends to view the embodiment of its human subjects irrelevant at best and something to ignored at worst. Thus, the move toward envisioning students as little more than "Blackboard Zombies." While I continue to resist treating my students as brains on sticks, at least notionally, I confess that the current implementation of law school education can lead to such a perception. Like most law schools, Regent has plenty of opportunities for experiential learning: skills courses and clinics among them. However, after reading "Vain Repetition?" I'm more convinced than ever that students need to be nudged to take advantage of such opportunities.
In brief, the "Vain Repetition" contrasts two modes of learning and their corresponding notions of what it means to be human. The first, drawn from the Matrix trilogy, implies that learning is at its best the downloading of information directly to the brain; human body optional. The second, from the first Karate Kid movie, demonstrates learning as a deeply interpersonal and intensely physical process; a distinctively human process. Knowing "that" vs. knowing "how."
Even when face-to-face, legal education, like most education in America, tends to view the embodiment of its human subjects irrelevant at best and something to ignored at worst. Thus, the move toward envisioning students as little more than "Blackboard Zombies." While I continue to resist treating my students as brains on sticks, at least notionally, I confess that the current implementation of law school education can lead to such a perception. Like most law schools, Regent has plenty of opportunities for experiential learning: skills courses and clinics among them. However, after reading "Vain Repetition?" I'm more convinced than ever that students need to be nudged to take advantage of such opportunities.
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