Academic

We?re putting our son into a Montessori school this fall. I had a lot of preconceived notions of Montessori schools up until I first visited one a few months ago. I was sure that first graders engaging in their own learning projects would be utter chaos, but was awestruck by how focused even six year olds were. My own six year old was completely turned on just by two day-long visits.

Teaching in this program requires real skill, as the teachers must guide students to a well-rounded education and prompt them at times to work deeper and recognize mistakes, but still maintain the hallmark of self-directed learning.

I left wondering what we could do to encourage law students to be this motivated to learn on their own. I have my own pet ?iceberg theory? of education ? namely that most of the learning and the best learning should occur outside the classroom on the students? own time. How many times did something come together for you in law school only in the wee hours studying alone or with a small group? That?s not to say class time isn?t important or that a professor can slough off. As in a Montessori program, class teaching seems vital for answering questions, providing a framework and a vocabulary that students might not get on their own, and provoking deeper inquiry beyond the obvious and the superficial. But I worry that sometimes I fall in the trap of treating class time more as a performance than as a prompt for more independent learning.

We should ask ourselves similar questions as the legal academy continues to explore curricular innovations (Carnegie and Best Practices and transactional lawyering). How do we provide a structure for learning without removing too much of the student responsibility to learn on their own? It is not pure rationalization to argue that large Socratic classes have the benefit of forcing students to take responsibility for their own learning. Would more independent study ensure that fewer law students tune out in the second and third years? Could truly focused independent study work with the economics of modern law schools with enrollment pressures?