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< | VERY ROUGH DRAFT |
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> | ROUGH DRAFT |
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< | ON A LEGAL EDUCATION |
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> | ON A PRACTICAL LEGAL EDUCATION |
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< | DISCLAIMER TO MY FELLOW CLASSMATES |
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> | This Wiki entry is an essay with a cause. It was inspired by my experiences and a recent passage I read from the economist Friedrich Hayek. Although I do not wholeheartedly agree with his economic theory, I respect his clarity in thinking and writing. In an essay entitled The Use of Knowledge in Society, Hayek thinks and states "The peculiar character of the problem of a rational economic order is determined precisely by the fact that the knowledge of the circumstances of which we must make use never exists in concentrated or integrated form but solely as the dispersed bits of incomplete and frequently contradictory knowledge which all the separate individuals possess... to put it briefly, it is a problem of the utilization of knowledge which is not given to anyone in its totality." I believe this statement is true but with the exponential evolution of technology and the bringing together of minds on the Internet, human beings finally have the ability to fix Mr. Hayek's problem of determining a rational economic order. For example, this wiki brings together some of these dispersed bits. |
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< | This Wiki entry is an essay for a cause not for a grade.
As you should all have realized by now, this course has not been a typical law school course. It was actually quite enjoyable. You probably checked your gmail chats and Facebook page less in this class than in most of your others. Sticking with the atypical theme, I present you with an atypical law school essay. I hope reading this is also truly enjoyable. This wiki, this somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade. This space, or freedom, to think gives us an opportunity to fix problems. I want to fix a problem that we all see and many of us speak about but none of us have ever done anything to solve it. This Wiki has brought at least the thirty-eight of us together in a creative, rather than competitive, atmosphere. I want law school to have the same atmosphere. |
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> | Law schools around the country are not taking advantage of this partial solution. Instead, our law school educations are stuck in the past (Just think about using ExamSoft for our final exams). As it stands, the law school education is inefficient. I recognize that it is not just the law school education but the country's entire public education system that is inefficient but we must start somewhere. |
| | AN AMBITIOUS ENDEAVOR |
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< | I do not know if we have enough power to achieve my goal and turn my idea into something substantive but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system. Ask yourself how many times you overheard someone within the walls of our law school talking about hating a class, or hating an assignment, or hating their entire their law school experience and we go to one of the top law schools in the world. We enjoy learning enjoy and enjoy the law. So what is it that some of us hate about the experience? After three years here, I believe that it is the failed education system running rampant through our nation's law schools.
For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information in hopes of the professor giving us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too and when we get passed grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress. That happens to be the basis of our legal education. But this course was different. It asked me to think. It created this wiki for me to express my thoughts. Somehow, with all that freedom to think, I was able to learn the law.
This course has made me realize that true progress does not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor does it come from a check signed by a law firm. Those checks bring you little freedom and a lot of restraints. Both grades and paychecks are limitations on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown, competing for a grade is worthless. I do not want a grade to gain a competitive advantage over you in the job market. Why limit ourselves to a grade and a paycheck when we have capable enough minds to use our thoughts to create a more useful legal education.
I understand that our law school is caught in a larger education system in which they are forced to compete. In that system, they have to get us high paying jobs in order to keep up with meaningless statistics and rankings. We are not caught in that system. We could create our own legal education system by taking this system's mistakes, learning from them, thinking about them, and creating something better. We can knock this system down and start anew or we can build on this system and show progress. We have an opportunity to think and create for the benefit of others. |
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> | We live in a period of great technological change that is sure to bring with it, great shifts in power. it will be our jobs as the greatest minds of our generation to assist others in adapting to this change and adapting to these shifts in power. Let us start by building a better legal education. |
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> | I do not know if we have enough power to turn my idea into something that works but I would like to brainstorm a new legal education system on this wiki. This somewhat uncomfortable open space that allows us to actually share our thoughts and gives us the possibility of creating something of substance, is bigger than my grade or your grade, it is and should be the future of our country's education system. It is convenient for the collaboration of great, thought-filled minds. It is efficient in allocating our resources by maximizing our time and space. We should use this technology to better the law school education, to better our learning experiences, to expand our thoughts into ideas, and our ideas into tangible creations. |
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< | Law school should be a tool that could be used to better American society. Interested law students should learn the skills needed not just to understand the current law but to build on the current law in a forward-thinking manner. At one point in time, law schools achieved this purpose - teachers actually taught students to think and to question what they read, rather than asking them to read and repeat. At some point law schools began to fail to achieve this purpose. We can bring back this purpose. |
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> | I started this essay as a rant about how crappy of an experience law school has been. At some point in ranting, I caught a glimpse of my angry self in the reflection of my laptop and realized I can take that anger and transform it into useful energy. We do not need to learn the law as we learn it today. We need to learn the law so that we can create laws for the vastly different present and the incredibly different future that is coming our way. |
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< | A college recently opened in Providence that gives students credit when they have proven that they deserve credit for actually thinking, doing, and progressing. Students at College Unbound have created useful businesses in Providence and improved their communities by taking what they learned, thinking about it, and applying it to their reality. Some do not get credit but that does not mean that they have failed. I propose a law school that does the same. I do not want a grade to show that I could understand the work that somebody else already did because that is inefficient. I want a grade to show that I have built upon that work by doing something with my own mind. I want a grade to relate to my thoughts, not my recall memory. I want to give and get credit where credit is deserved. |
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> | Our intellectual property laws are stuck in the past. Our corporate laws have allowed our corporations to run rampant (see Essay #2). Our constitutional law has allowed our government and our politics to remain, for the most part, stagnant without maximizing our potential to progress, as government officials and politicians battle back and forth just to win and wave their shiny golden ticket in the air, from Justice to Justice, from court to court, from election to election, from sea to shining sea. This is not only a problem, it is a disaster. When there is a problem, you usually know where to start. For example, if your house has a leak, you determine where it is, and go from there but if your house was destroyed by a hurricane (a real one, not that little bitch Irene that New York complained about for weeks), your only option is to collect your insurance and start over. We need to start over and we are the brightest law students in the country. |
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< | MY PROPOSAL |
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> | For the most part, the majority of law school courses don't ask us to think. They instruct us to read and then they test us on our reading comprehension skills. Rather than allowing us to think about what we learned and develop skills necessary for contributing to the legal field, we are asked to spit back information, hoping that the professor gives us a good grade. Those grades are quite limiting too. They force our great minds to compete. And when we finally get passed our grades, it will be a paycheck, or a car, or a house, or a personal space shuttle. I have no problems with competition per se. I have problems with competition without progress which happens to be the basis of our legal education. |
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< | Step outside of the current law school mold and you will be grateful for the free air that you breathe. You will realize that there is an open space to think, on your own or collectively. You will realize that you have the ability to create, on your own or collectively. So I ask you to knock down the walls of grades that we have each lived in for over two decades. I ask you to at least put the competition for high-paying jobs on hold. I ask you to just take a few moments and THINK. Think about how we can change things enough so that students are not walking through the halls hating, balding, and aging because of a grade and a due date. |
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> | True progress comes from building on thoughts, not come from getting a check+ on a paper nor a check signed by a law firm. Those things are restraints on our intellectual capabilities. At the level of intelligence we have all shown by now, competing for a grade is worthless. |
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< | If we fail with this idea, maybe you will be able to write about this on your restricted 1 page resume (if it fits and if the career counselor says that law firms will like it). If we fail, and you want it enough, I am sure you will find a high-paying job. If we succeed, we can delete the resume file from our computers and attach our names to something that actually matters. Instead of giving money to build a staircase in the JG lobby give an flexible intellectual platform for the next generation of law students to not only learn from but to build upon as well. |
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> | By taking this course, I realized that I am interested in the law, just not the laws of today. They do not pertain to my life or my future. They are the laws of yesterday, stuck in the past and not forward-looking in any way. We need laws for today and we need laws for tomorrow. This course was not a typical course and I know that because I actually received an education by taking it. I was asked to think and express my thoughts. Those thoughts were challenged, and I was not told I was wrong but asked to build upon them until they were right, for my own benefit and in turn, for society's benefit too. For once, my thoughts on, and education in, a topic were not going to end with the receipt of a grade. I appreciate this so much that I want to take this course and use it as a basis for our future legal education. |
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< | We are all intelligent. We were admitted into this school. Let us use the education we received here to actually change this system or at least to try and remove some of the bullshit that we are forced to put up with for a few years. Let's make use of our great minds and fix a real problem. |
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> | I want to take advantage of the bits of knowledge each of us have and combine them to form a real idea for what our legal education needs. We could start small. A single course. It doesn't need a grade because our grade will be shown by our progress. |
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< | A CONCLUSION AND A BEGINNING |
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> | Imagine a law school course that used this wiki. Each of us was asked at the beginning of the semester to devote one hour a week to solving a serious problem in our country (a problem chosen by a professor in collaboration with students). By the end of the 13 weeks, we would have almost 500 hours of collaboration. That is a lot of hours for great minds to think about a real problem. In the book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell (I know he is a jackass and has weird hair) says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. Imagine if this was not just 38 students but 100 students. Imagine if it was not just 1 credit but 4 credits. Could you imagine what our minds could accomplish as young law students if other schools joined in on this practice. Forget mastery, we would have progress. |
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< | Instead of receiving an education, law school tried to I was squeeze me into a mold without caring about my dimensions. This type of mold is only good if you are the "molder" and you want to maintain control over the "moldee." Let us use this wiki to break out of these molds and do something about our failing education system. |
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> | The best part about this idea is that this course would be fun, educational, and would have impact in the real world. It would be all of these things because we would finally be asking students to think by using their minds instead of their memory-recall. It is not fun to memorize, it is fun to learn. |
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< | Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. Let us use it freely and properly. Let us share our minds and let us create. |
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> | I do not blame our education system and if I did, I would deserve some blame as well. But in my life, I have ruled out the concept of blame - there are only consequences. Our current education system is a two-way street and at a young age, I learned it was possible to walk down that street without thinking too much and so I stopped thinking so much. I have woken up to the fact that the only thing that will satisfy me is to think and to do something with my thoughts. I have learned from my street-walking mistakes and the consequences of my thoughts from now on will hopefully make up for my past decisions. |
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> | I do not want 83 credits for my law school experience. What credit do I truly deserve? I took some courses and did well on my final exams. At some point over the past three years, it hit me that there are no due dates or ends of classes in life. Our education system needs to realize this too. A wiki like this, and a course similar to the one I proposed above, could have impact. As technology has shown, the benefits of longevity are exponential. The idea of artificial intelligence is strange because it is not artificial at all. It is our logic and our volition that creates the intelligence to begin with and it is real. It has just given our brains, and thoughts, the ability to live on after our bodies die. |
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> | Mark Twain once said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The Internet gives us the ability to collaborate so that we can do something about the world's problems. So let us use technology for that purpose. We can help Mr. Hayek solve his problem. We can become efficient. We can let our thoughts and ideas build upon each other in a more efficient manner. We should combine technology with a legal education so we are not stuck taking exams on ExamSoft but testing our minds in the real world. We could fix the education system and fix the country, credit by credit. And maybe, one day, we will truly know what a credit is, appreciate its value, and give and get credit only when it is deserved. |
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-- AlanDavidson - 08 Dec 2011 |