When you're in law school, your teachers call on you. When you haven't raised your hand to volunteer.
A lot.
Depending on the teacher, you can end up answering questions for an extended period of time - sometimes, the teacher asks you questions for an entire class period. It's all part of the Socratic method, and although the merits of the method are debated, it's heavily utilized in basically every law school.
Most students prepare for this by doing the assigned reading carefully. However, each class has a substantial amount of reading for each class period, and since you have more than one class, each case sort of blurs into the others. Then, the teacher might ask questions that have nothing to do with the case, asking you to try to extend the rule that you've learned in the case to other situations. Of course, they do this to show, by your incorrect answers, the limitations of the rule, or at least your understanding of the rule.
It's exhausting, it's stressful, but it's an inevitable part of law school.
Another inevitable part is that, at least once, everyone will say something wrong, stupid, or downright weird when being cold called.
When you're the one saying something stupid, it feels terrible. When it's someone else saying the awkward thing, it just helps to keep the class interesting.
This week, someone (not me, thankfully) got called on in one of my classes had one of those unfortunate incidents. After some discussion about the person who was bringing the lawsuit (the plaintiff), the exchange went like this:
Professor: So who is Mwani [the plaintiff] suing here?
Student (while scrambling through notes): Uh, well, he's suing bin Ladin, and, um...(pause)...I forget the other guy's name...
Professor: Afghanistan.
Student: Oh, yeah, Afghanistan.
It's usually a good bet that the defendant is a person, but every now and then, when it's a country, you can have a really awkward moment.
Fortunately, that professor is fabulous, and she just moved right along. We do have some other professors who will really tell you if they think your answer is wrong or stupid (sometimes in those words). I try to avoid eye contact in those classes...
3 comments:
Is it weird that I get anxiety reading about your stressful classroom situations? Everyone worries about you walking the street of NY and riding the subway- I think that sitting in class may be scarier. I will now amend my prayers to not only include your safety, but that you may only be visible to your teachers on a day you feel prepared.
I had an Econ prof that asked, on the first day of class, what the definition of Environmental Economics would be. Some eager beaver answered and he shot back, "That is the stupidest answer I have ever heard."
I spent the entire semester trying to be invisible. But one day, after we had a lengthy discussion about something to do with cows, the class moved on and he cold called me. All I could say was, "Sorry...I'm still thinkin' about those cows." Straight faced. And then I shrugged. And then looked back at my notes and started writing. I think he was so surprised that he didn't know what to say, because he just moved on.
Got the only A he gave in that class, incidentally. :-)
I'm sure you rock the cold calls!!
SCARY! Last night I went to a "Day in the life of the MBA" where I took a few mini classes from Jake's professor. The room was full of MBA spouses and they started cold calling us! How unfair! We're not even students! In those moments, I became seriously intrigued with the inner workings of my pen! :-)
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