Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Op-Ed: Old School, Baby, by Robert Steinbuch (Arkansas-Little Rock):
My colleague Gwen Faulkenberry wrote a fine column last week about how to handle artificial intelligence in the classroom. She has "come to the [apt] conclusion that . . . AI and [she] cannot peacefully co-exist in the classroom anymore."
Her sound solution is that "[o]ne of us has to go … I am going full-on old-school, baby. We are going to write in class with pen and paper. No screens."
Gwen arrived at this inflection point because, as an experienced educator, she recognizes that "AI replaces the whole process of learning how to think about what we read and [how to] write an analysis of it. This is a type of training–exercise for our brain muscles–deemed vital to a well-rounded education. That's why everyone takes English, no matter what their major."
Law school puts this notion on steroids. Our mantra is that we teach students to "think like lawyers," meaning we're not overly concerned with the minutiae of any area of law, because legal rules constantly change. Rather, we want students to understand the ideas behind and analysis driving the law, so that these soon-to-be attorneys can both derive for themselves the applicable rules and understand their meaning at any given moment throughout their hopefully lengthy careers.
This novel focus was the brilliant brainchild of Charles Langdell, a visionary legal scholar and dean of Harvard Law School in the late 19th century. Convinced that law should be studied as a science, Langdell moved away from the traditional reliance on rote memorization. Instead, he believed students should derive legal principles from source material.
Rather than lecturing, Langdell adopted a dynamic method of questioning that demanded active engagement from students. He would call on them unexpectedly, typically asking them to summarize cases, pinpoint legal issues, and articulate reasoning undergirding original text. This process forces students to analyze precedent and apply it to new scenarios, fostering the skill of legal reasoning.
The professor in this model is not a dispenser of answers, but a guide, steering students toward intellectual independence through relentless inquiry. … As such, this Socratic dialogue mirrors the adversarial nature of legal practice, training students to think on their feet and anticipate counterarguments–to, well, think like lawyers. …
Langdell reshaped legal education. He turned passive learners into active participants, equipping them with the critical-thinking skills needed for the practice of law. His method took root at Harvard and spread across all law schools throughout the nation, cementing his legacy as a pedagogical pioneer. …
As we hear the facile exclamations for change across academia, let's not be so quick to jump on the latest bandwagon of bad ideas that inevitably will peel off like an unfortunate sunburn after an impromptu trip to the Bahamas. Socrates remains one of the great thinkers of all time, and the application of his genius by Langdell to modern legal education will require more than a PowerPoint presentation by the pedagogical equivalent of a timeshare salesman offering the latest educational snake oil to justify the abandonment of this 150-year-old, white-male-created, discomfit-inducing, old-school innovation.
Editor's Note: If you would like to receive a daily email with links to legal education posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.
