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DearProfessorMoglenAnOpenLetter 22 - 08 Apr 2010 - Main.JonathanWaisnor
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| | Dear Professor Moglen,
I am writing this letter because I think you provide a vital voice to the Columbia Law School community, and because the time you devote to students in office hours and the work you do on the wiki is more than commendable and should be more common. However, though you are one of the most engaging and dedicated professors I have encountered at CLS thus far, its not all just peachy. | | | Can Eben improve his rhetoric to make it more effective? Sure, I suppose. However, I'd just like to remark that all great advancements, scientific or otherwise, require some sort of sacrifice. In this instance, Eben has sacrificed the cordiality of the classroom (etc.) in order to establish a point and further, what I believe to be, a legitimate and honorable objective of the course. Does he have to do it? Probably not. But, this thread seems to serve as prima facie evidence of its effectiveness in ways that other means could not have achieved. Most important, I'd rather it be Eben, a professor who truly cares about his students, call me a moron than another professor or student. To me, it is like hitting someone over the head with a wiffle bat.
-- MatthewZorn - 08 Apr 2010 | |
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At the risk of being accused of ass-kissing and without commenting on whether I agree with the ideas presented in class, I'll say that I enjoy the directness and bluntness of the professor's teaching style. I think the point is that, behind the veneer of professionalism and respectability presented here at Columbia, there are serious fundamental problems with the system of teaching and learning law school. Simply making law school cosmetically nicer by having a generous curve, passing everyone through Legal Methods, or not having Paper Chase style Socratic isn't going to produce good lawyers nor is it going to reduce the anxiety level among students that causes them to make bad career choices.
The abuse doled out by the law school (pissing on us) is not the same as what Professor Moglen does. Law school pushes people into high-anxiety periods where they are implicitly threatened with life-ruining failure (bad grades, no job, huge debt), and it does this with a smile (a veneer of "respectability"). I'd rather have a system that is rough around the edges but is based on respect for the students than one that is respectable on it's face but rotten inside.
However, I wonder whether Professor Moglen's hostility towards some faculty members might make them unwilling to adopt some of his teaching methods, such as the Wiki, even though the effectiveness of the medium in terms of participation and feedback is obvious.
-- JonathanWaisnor - 08 Apr 2010 | | | |
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