In a good foreign language class, the teacher use a variety of teaching methods—generally some combination of reading, writing, and oral lessons—to help students with comprehension. I admit that at the end of the school year, I never quite felt confident enough to engage a person off the street with my high school Spanish abilities. Still, I think law school, at least Columbia, can take a cue from this type of learning immersion.

This is not a matter of teaching to the test, but teaching in a way that prepares us for how we’ll use the law in real life. At the least, if we’re going to have a grading system so reliant on final exam performance, it won’t hurt to prepare us for that too. One of my classes required us to prepare written reflections every few weeks. I think that is helpful. In addition to doing more writing, why not shorten lectures a bit and dedicate some time in class to small group sessions where we may analyze, debate, and work together on particular legal problems from our cases. Most of us won’t be working alone when we graduate. We’ll be in some team figuring out our client’s problems. The method of asking two or three students questions, who are often just as clueless as the rest of us but pretending to talk “law talk” does little to keep a class of 60 or more students engaged, other than to take mental notes of who might comprise the coveted fraction of students who secure As. Maybe that is too elementary for the halls of Columbia. But too often, I’ve felt like I had to teach myself how to really understand a subject I am paying (a lot of money) for esteemed professors to teach. However rudimentary group sessions or regular writing activities may be, I am sure more hands-on learning will lessen professors’ disappointment when they are bored senseless with mindless regurgitations of rules on final exams.