Are we making teaching and learning more enjoyable

JOURNALISM OF COURAGE

My Dear Students | Let’s reflect on the classroom teaching experience; has it lost its value?

'Are we making teaching and learning better and more enjoyable?' asks Nuggehalli.

'Why do we need classes on jurisprudence?

My dear students,

Today I want to give you some idea of what I have been telling my students about the value of classroom teaching. We are packing you like sardines in cans for hours on end; at the very least we must reflect a bit on what you and I, teachers and students, are getting out of it. I don’t mean I get a salary and you get a job at the end of it. I mean to ask if we are making teaching and learning better and more enjoyable or are we just sticking to something that has outlived its value. I am teaching legal philosophy this term. This is what I am telling my students. There are some references below that are specific to legal philosophy but I don’t think that will come in the way of your reading

Welcome to jurisprudence. I suppose we must begin by asking why do we need classes on jurisprudence? You can get your readings from the internet. You have talking heads on YouTube and Instagram delivering lectures on jurisprudence. Why do you need to sit in a collective physical space and why do you need me? If we don’t answer this question, we will not utilise our time properly in this term.

You need me because the texts will not speak for themselves. I won’t be doing my job unless you come out of the class with some insights into the texts you did not have before you entered the class. This is the challenge for me: to try to get you to think about things you wouldn’t have thought of if you were left alone with the texts. Hopefully I can get you to think about the text from different viewpoints, point out what the author is trying to get at, how that fits into the rest of the literature, how it adds to the existing state of knowledge, how you might want to agree and disagree with it, and why it’s interesting enough to warrant your attention and mine.

You don’t need only me though. You need each other. This is an even bigger problem than convincing you that you need me. I find that many of you have very little faith in your ability to contribute to class discussions. Perhaps it’s because you think you haven’t prepared enough or read enough. But, at least in jurisprudence, you will be made to do plenty of reading in the class. At that time, please have some faith in yourself and in your friends that you will come up with insights that will invigorate the discussion in the class. You will understand what’s been taught better because you will build on each other’s insights. Is this so hard to believe? Will it help if I tell you that in previous batches this has worked very well, that students who were seemingly diffident came out with perspectives and thoughts that helped everyone—me, their friends and themselves — navigate jurisprudence better.

You still don’t believe classroom discussions add value? Let’s take the example of just the last two classes. I asked you to look at the Speluncean Explorers case and tell me what the judges thought of the nature of the law and the relationship between law and morality. Some of you answered that if authority is the essence of the law, then necessarily morality can’t play a role in identifying legal propositions, because we need to maintain the sanctity of authority. Some others in the class said that it is precisely because authority is integral to law that people who apply law, such as judges, use moral principles while applying the law. The actual solution to this issue is not important right now, it’s just that I really liked the way many of you responded to the issues. You were thinking through the problem and you were using the classroom as it was meant to be used; as a forum for shaping thoughts, debating different points of view, and working with and off each other to arrive at insights you probably won’t get on your own. 

The most boring thing you can do is just sit tight and listen only to me. There is a certain point of time after which I find it difficult to listen to myself and so I have no hope that you will listen to me for more than a few minutes if I start on a soliloquy. Here’s what I would like you to do. Keep aside your previous years in law school. Perhaps you lost interest in some of your classes or you have gotten used to your more garrulous classmates intervening in the class discussions all the time. Let’s make a fresh start. You start listening to me and to each other. You have nothing to lose. You might even gain something. At the very least, you won’t be bored.