| EDUCATIONAL
METHOD ON TRIAL: The Case of Socrates v. Dewey.
by
Thomas R. Orr, Esq.
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| Plato
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After
that time those who are selected from the class of twenty years
old will be promoted to higher honour than the rest, and the
sciences which they learned without any order in their early
education will now be brought together, and they will be able
to see the natural relationship of them to one another and to
true being. Yes,
he said, that is the only kind of knowledge which, in a few
fortunate persons, takes lasting root. 1
-Plato,
Republic
Before
a first-year law student ever gets to his first day of class
he has "excelled" during 8 years of high school and
undergraduate academic competition, passed a tough entrance
exam, and survived an application process designed to find only
those who have the capability to be successful in law school.
He has bested many other students in scores on standardized
tests in elementary and secondary schools,2 college
(e.g. PSAT, SAT, ACT),3 and to get admitted to law
school (LSAT).4 By today's standards he is most often
the prototypical "A" student with a grade point average
of 3.5 or better, and an LSAT score in the 90th percentile.5
Today's "Excellent" Student Struggles in his First
Year of Law School
Heart
racing, sweaty palms, getting mentally geared up-no, it's
not a typical athlete experiencing pre-game butterflies-it's
a typical first-year law student experiencing pre-class butterflies.
What could so unnerve such an "excellent" student?
Evidence suggests that the new law student's stress is due
largely to the combination of a sudden switch from the lecture
method of instruction to the Socratic Method;6
and from objective/empirical grading of the student's ability
to memorize lecture materials to a subjective evaluation of
the student's actual understanding and analytical skill as
demonstrated by a one-time written essay.7
Dr. Adler, a doctor of philosophy and former faculty member
of the Law School of the University of Chicago, provides some
insight:
| 
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| Mortimer
J. Adler |
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[W]e
must also face the fact that the leading professional schools-in
law, medicine and engineering-have long complained that they
must take graduates of our colleges and teach them how to read
and write before they can teach them law, medicine, or engineering.
Some years ago when I was on the faculty of the Law School of
the University of Chicago, a substantial portion of the law
student's first year had to be devoted to tutoring in the basic
skills of reading and writing. I suspect that the situation
has not changed for the better. The Bachelor of Arts degree,
which should certify that a young man or woman has the liberal
skills prerequisite to specialized study no longer certifies
anything of the sort; and the professional schools, have come
to realize with dismay that that they cannot rely on it. 8
"Excellence"
by the standards of modern education today does not always
reflect true understanding or skill-the hallmarks of a true
education and the prerequisites not only to success in law
school but to a happy life. Thus, today's "excellent"
student enters law school totally unprepared to handle a method
of education designed, not to reward memory, but to instill
understanding. Gone are the long lectures, furious note
taking, and long hours spent memorizing the opinions of the
lecturers in order to regurgitate them during a later test
(and then forget them for the most part). Gone are the textbooks
and commentaries replete with facts, theories and concepts
to be memorized and repeated back. Gone are the familiar
periodic quizzes, papers, and midterms that judge a student's
ability to absorb and parrot back the opinions, theories and
facts deemed important by his teacher.
In
law school, college professors lecturing about their field
and their theories are replaced with law professors who directly
question their students about cases they have read-cases that,
unlike textbooks, have neither instructions nor explanations
that will serve to answer the question posed. To complicate
matters, the cases are often selected because of the errors
they contain or for esoteric points not easily seen upon a
quick read. Quite often, there is no definite "answer"-nothing
to memorize or repeat back. And, just when the student thinks
he has finally given "the" answer, the professor
asks another question or poses a hypothetical that exposes
the flaw and the absurdity in the student's reasoning. The
questioning can be confrontational and professors often leave
thoughts and ideas dangling-leaving the students with more
questions than at the beginning of class. Not surprisingly,
students used to the more predictable "lecture and memorize"
method, express immense uncertainty and frustration at this
process.9
Of
course, it is just such uncertainty and frustration that the
Socratic method seeks to awaken as a means to motivate the
student to inquire and analyze further. As in life,
there are no easy answers. For many students, this is
the first time they have been asked to analyze facts and think
on their feet under the scrutiny of a professor and their
fellow students. It is a small reflection of what these prospective
lawyers will face when asked similar questions by judges,
experienced lawyers, and clients about how the law applies
in real life situations that are never identical. Simply
repeating memorized facts would never succeed in real life
and should not succeed in a classroom. Far better to
learn how to analyze and think in the relative safety of a
classroom under the watchful eye of a professor whose only
goal is to awaken understanding, than in a court room with
real lives and fortunes at stake.10
The Law School "Classic" Method Runs Contrary to
the Precepts of Modern Education
The
method of legal education described above is a combination
of what is referred to as the "Socratic Method"11
and the "Case Method." In the "Case Method,"
students prepare for class by reading books containing actual
court cases. Much like students in a typical Great Books program
who prepare for class by reading the actual text of the Great
Books (as opposed to commentaries on the texts), law students
read the actual written opinions of judges serving in various
federal and state courts (as opposed to treatises describing
those cases). Other than reading the cases, a law student
has no homework, no assignments, and no extra credit.
His job is to come to class prepared to discuss and analyze
the thinking of the judges in the cases he has read. At class,
the Socratic Method begins. The professor randomly selects
one student and asks for a summary of the case and the judge's
decision.12 After the summary is over, the "game
is afoot" and the professor will probe the student's
understanding and analysis with questions about unclear, important,
or difficult issues13. At this point, the discussion
becomes a true class discussion with the professor calling
on students randomly to get their answers to the same or new
questions, or to hypotheticals constructed by the Professor
to focus attention on ambiguous terms, assumed concepts, or
fallacious reasoning.14 Some form of this process
can be observed in almost every law school in America today.15
Law Schools Have Rejected The Lecture Method and the Empirical
Method of Testing
Law
Schools did not always use the Classic Method so prevalent
today. Indeed, legal education in America used to resemble
the lecture system commonly used in most of our present-day
elementary and secondary schools, and colleges and universities.
American legal education, like our legal system itself, has
its roots in the common law of England. From the time of Edward
I, British lawyers were trained through the system of Inns
of Court and apprenticeships (one well known example of this
can be found in Dickens' David Copperfield).
Like their British counterparts and the fictional Copperfield
and Traddles,16 most early American lawyers learned
their trade as apprentices-copying law books and legal papers
for practicing attorneys.17 By copying law books
and legal papers, students were expected to learn the law
through memorization.
This
process continued even after the founding of the first American
law school in 1775. Law students continued to work as apprentices
reading and copying the law from treatises, and also attended
daily hour-and-a-half lectures. The lecture and memorization
method prevailed in early American law schools until the late
19th century when a few legal educators began to realize that
this method was not producing lawyers with a true understanding
of legal principles and the ability to analyze how those principles
should apply in ever-changing factual situations.
| 
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| Christopher
Columbus Langdell
1826-1906 |
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Professor
Theodore Dwight of Columbia Law School is credited with being
the first law professor to do something about this by providing
black letter rules of law to his students and then questioning
them socratically as to how those rules might apply in a new
factual "laboratory" situation. But it is Christopher
Columbus Langdell, a Harvard Law School Professor, who is hailed
as the first legal educator to combine the Socratic and Case
methods. Through his efforts other law schools soon followed
suit.18 Professor Beales, at Columbia's Law
School in the 1930's and 1940's, came to embody what is now
also known as the "Classic Method" of law instruction
(i.e., the combination of the "Case Method"
and the "Socratic Method"), and was, perhaps,
its greatest practitioner (Beales is reported to have been the
model for Professor Kingsfield in the book and movie "Paper
Chase").19 As with the fictional
Professor Kingsfield, Professor Beales is reported to have terrorized
his students in class to the point where they dreaded going
to class (many of these same students later reported that he
was the greatest teacher that they had ever encountered).20
In
the classic method of legal education, accomplishment is measured
more by rapid analysis and the ability to articulate the analysis-not
by memory and regurgitation. How then is a law student
graded? The Socratic process continues for an entire
semester or year at which time the student is given a lengthy
written essay exam (2-4 hours) usually consisting of hypothetical
cases rife with legal issues in the tested subject area. The
best students usually demonstrate their analytical ability
and understanding of legal principles by taking the same Socratic
approach to the written exam, i.e., positing questions to
all possible issues and exploring the nuances of all possible
answers. After reading the written essay, the professor assigns
a grade that reflects the professor's subjective evaluation
of the student's understanding and analytical ability and,
in some schools, the student's performance in the classroom
Socratic discussion.21
The Law School Socratic Method Runs Counter to the Methods
of Modern Education
For
the most part, and despite criticisms from some modern educators,22
law schools to this day still insist on the Socratic method
particularly in the first year of law school.23
The persistent and continuous insistence of law schools
on the Socratic method and "subjective" written
essays is an imperfect but credible witness against the overwhelming
insistence of modern elementary, secondary and undergraduate
schools on the lecture method and "objective"
tests such as multiple-choice exams. The distinction between
these means of education is no small matter. Indeed, it is
critical. Critical not only if we want to educate our children
but also if we want to form them morally. Dr. Adler described
the importance of this distinction in 1976:
The
way in which we test or examine students and the way in which
we grade them determines what teachers teach and how they
teach, and what students learn and how they learn. Our
present methods call for indoctrination rather than genuine
teaching, and for memorizing rather than genuine learning.
Unless
we radically change our present methods of testing and grading
students, we cannot expect our teachers to become cooperative
artists instead of mere indoctrinators, and we cannot expect
our students to become genuine learners instead of mere memorizers.24
Today,
on almost a daily basis, our modern educators ask us for more
money to solve what, all admit, is an educational crisis.
Our students, they tell us, are not well educated. They
know this because scores on standardized tests tell them we
are not measuring up as compared to others. The solution,
they tell us, is to hire more teachers, build more classrooms,
and hold teachers and students accountable for learning as
measured by standardized tests. Indeed, the two candidates
in our recent Presidential race both agreed on these essential
points while disagreeing as to how and where to spend money
to correct these problems.
Although
many of the observations about poorly educated students are
correct, many modern educators automatically assume that more
teachers, more classrooms, and standardized testing/accountability
will improve the level of education. Even more significantly,
these educators overlook the moral component of education.
Either that or they do not accept responsibility for education
on the moral virtues so dear to Socrates. The two components,
good education and morality, go hand-in-hand with a true education
as contemplated by Socrates. As early as 1940, it was evident
that modern education was failing on both ends:
Scientific
measurements of the educational product of the schools of
New York and Pennsylvania show not merely a failure to master
the ordinary subject matters of instruction but, what is much
more dismal, the inadequacy of the schools with respect to
the basic operations of critical intelligence as these occur
in reading and writing. Not only are distressingly large
numbers of high school graduates unable to read and write
to that minimum degree which must be possessed by free minds
participating in a democratic community, but the evidence
further shows that after graduation they have neither appetite
or capacity for reading anything better than the local newspaper
or mediocre fiction.
Our
colleges produce undisciplined and hence unliberated minds,
minds which are cultivated only by a superficial literacy.
Almost worse, is that they produce skeptics about reason and
knowledge, relativists about morals, sophists in political
matters, in short, liberals in that worst sense of the word
in which liberalism is suicidal because it is unable to give
a rational defense of its sentimental protestations without
contradicting itself. 25
Modern Education has Departed from Centuries of Proven Educational
Method & Testing
How
is it that our educators are so keenly aware that there is
a crisis in education yet so miss the mark on the means to
overcome the crisis? Quite simply, they are heavily
influenced (some unconsciously so) by the tide of empiricism
that has swept through the world since the Reformation and
Renaissance.26 They have rejected means that have
proven successful for centuries. Written tests, grading,
and normative/standardized tests are only relatively recent
newcomers in history, and their advent was the harbinger of
a major sea change in education due to an unnatural emphasis
on science and empiricism.27 Aristotle and Socrates
never received grades for their efforts, yet no one can question
their brilliance or understanding. St. Thomas Aquinas
had no transcript to prove his brilliance yet his Summa
theologiae makes that self-evident. Einstein's failing
grades in elementary school are well known, yet no man can
question that he had one of the most brilliant scientific
minds in the history of mankind. None of the authors of the
Great Books of Western Civilization had to sit for a SAT exam
in order to get an advanced education yet all of these men
achieved a level of understanding and analytical ability largely
unparalleled today. How is it then that our world has become
so different? Dr. Adler explains:
[W]ith
the progressive secularization of our society and culture,
we have moved further and further in the direction taken at
the Reformation and with the Renaissance. . . . From the fifteenth
to the middle of the nineteenth century, the main course of
European and later of American Education represents a continuity
rather than a break with the education of antiquity. . . .
Only with a sense of that continuity of Western education
from the Greeks to the nineteenth century can we fully appreciate
the sharpness of the break that has occurred since 1850.28
The Way in Which We Teach & Test Today Differs Radically
from the Ways of the Past
One
of the chief "reforms" since 1850 has been
in the way we test our students. Contrary to the educational
reform under which all of us have been educated, most of the
men that we know as authors of the Great Books were educated
when testing was done by oral examination-the predominant
mode of assessing understanding since the time of Charlemagne.29
A few examples will suffice. In the seventh century,
Alcuin, Charlemagne's Chief Minister and head of the Cathedral
School at York, used oral examinations.30
The University of Paris and the University of Bologna used
oral exams in the 12th century.31 Evidence
exists of oral exams in Italy in the 1400s, and in England
at Oxford and Cambridge in the 1700s.32 In America,
oral examinations predominated from 1709 until 1845 when Horace
Mann, one of the modern reformers, forced the Boston Public
Schools to abandon oral examinations in favor of written examinations.33
| 
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| John
Dewey
1859-1952 |
|
In
contrast, written examinations were rare until about 1850 when
Descartes' theories really began to take hold in education through
the likes of John Dewey.34 Why the change in emphasis
from oral to written examinations? All of the changes
that have come in the last hundred years flow from a desire
to infuse the scientific method into all aspects of education.35
In 1903, Frederick Kelly introduced the concept of norm-referenced
scoring that still predominates today. As he explained it, educators
should create "norms in terms of which a child can readily
be scientifically classed for pedagogical purposes."
36 The introduction of the first successful intelligence
test in 1905 signaled the incursion of psychology into education
and it "altered testing forever, eventually including
the use of statistical criteria to select questions for inclusion
on achievement tests." 37
These
notions quickly inserted themselves into testing at all levels.
For example, the Educational Testing Service, administrator
of the SAT and many other standardized tests and successor
to the College Entrance Examination Board founded in 1900,
makes no secret that its tests (including the first known
SAT exam in 1926) were based on the principles of Binet and
Kelly.38 Another example, one of the purposes of
testing in the Boston Public Schools of 1916 was described
as "furnish[ing] the teacher with a standard by which
she may judge whether her class is above or below the general
standard for the city." 39 One of the
centerpieces of this movement was the introduction of the
multiple-choice test in 1914 by Fredrick Kelly and, with the
advent of the appropriate technology in 1955, this mode has
predominated.40 Thus, by the end of the 20th century,
the incursion of the "scientific management movement"
into education was responsible for displacing the written
essay tests that had only come to replace oral exams in the
previous century. 41
The
use of grades followed a similar course. In North America,
grading was reportedly first used at Yale in 1785 in a system
that used adjectives for grades. Yale is also responsible
for creating a scale-of-four system in the 1800s-a system
that persists to this day under the grade point average system
seen in almost every school.42 Other colleges such
as Harvard, William & Mary, and the University of Michigan
experimented with various letter and percentile grades from
1830 into the 20th century. 43 For example, Harvard
used numerical scales in 1877, letter grades in 1883, classifications
of groups of students in 1884, class in 1886, and classifications
for merit in 1895.44 Percentage grading
appeared in the late 19th century and the switch to letter
grades in elementary and secondary schools came in the 1930s
and 1940s.45 The 1960s saw many schools opting
for pass/fail grades or written evaluations of performance.
Today, letter grades are the predominant method in elementary
and secondary schools. Report cards summarizing grades first
began appearing in 1911 and are commonplace today.46
The
introduction of written and multiple choice tests, and grades
did not go unopposed. For example, as early as 1888,
a school superintendent in Cincinnati complained about the
effect of written essay tests when used to promote and classify
children:
[These
essay tests] perverted the best efforts of teachers, and narrowed
and grooved their instructions; they have occasioned and made
well nigh imperative the use of mechanical and rote methods
of teaching; they have occasioned cramming and the most vicious
habits of study; they have caused much of the overpressure
charged upon schools, some of which is real; they have tempted
both teachers and pupils to dishonesty; and last but not least,
they have permitted a mechanical method of schools supervision.47
The Influence of Scientism Has Given Us Poor-Students who
are Skeptics
Despite
such objections, these changes gained firm ground as the scientific
method gained ascendancy over the theology and philosophy
that influenced education prior to the Reformation and Renaissance.48
Those imbued with the notion that the only truth is
that which is measurable could not accept anything less than
scientific "objective" measures of performance.
Lectures proved to be the most efficient means to indoctrinate
youth with the facts they needed to know for their tests,
and grades the best means to quantify performance (as opposed
to a qualitative assessment of understanding). Over
sixty years ago, however, it was readily apparent, that the
results of these changes were disastrous for education, the
students, and our country:
The
factors operating in the current situation have been prepared
by centuries of cultural change. What has been happening in
American education since 1900, what has finally achieved its
full effect in the present generation, flows with tragic inevitability
from the seeds of modern culture as they have developed in
the past three hundred years. The very things which constituted
the cultural departure that we call modern times have eventuated,
not only in the perverted education of American youth today,
but also in the crises that we are unprepared to face.
. . . They are both the last fruitions of modern man's exclusive
trust in science and his gradual disavowal of whatever lies
beyond the field of
science
as irrational prejudice, as opinion emotionally held.
[As
a result, a student so educated] will see for himself that
moral questions, questions of good and bad, right and wrong,
cannot be answered by the methods of natural science or social
science. He will conclude that "value judgments"
cannot be made, except of course as expressions of personal
prejudice. He will extend this conclusion to cover not only
decisions about his own conduct but also moral judgments about
economic systems and political programs. He will accept without
question the complete divorce of economics from ethics and,
in discipleship to Machiavelli, he will become as much a realist
in politics as Hitler and Mussolini. 49
Modern Education is Infused and Imbued with Cartesian Principles
What
are the differences between the education of centuries past
and present day education that would account for the visible
decline not only in the intellectual ability of our students
but also their moral decline as well? "The chief difference
between ourselves and our ancestors is that they, for the
most part, talked sense about liberal education, whereas we
for the most part-I mean our leading educators-do not."
50 Our modern educators not only exaggerate the
place of science in the curriculum, but also have infused
Cartesian notions into the principle tenets of every subject.
Cartesian principles not only determine the validity and primacy
of all subjects, but also are the basis by which student understanding
is measured.51 In short, a religion of science
predominates modern education.52
The Lecture Method and Tests of Memory Corrupt the "Means"
of Education
The
root error of many of our modern educators imbued with primacy
of scientism is "not merely that in many quarters
the end of liberal education has been forgotten or mistaken,
but that the means have been corrupted or deformed."
53 The "means" of education have
been corrupted to a great extent because modern educators
have failed to understand the critical distinction between
memory and understanding.54 Memory is merely an
act of the senses but understanding requires an act of the
intellect. A fact remembered is not a fact understood. Science
can measure memory but "measuring" understanding
(in a Cartesian sense) is nearly an oxymoron.55
Just
as our modern educators fail to appreciate the difference
between memory and understanding, so do they fail to appreciate
an important corollary distinction, i.e., the difference between
opinion and
knowledge.56
Knowledge requires an understanding based on an evaluation
of reasons and evidence. Students can acquire knowledge
with or without the aid of teachers-by thinking and making their
own discoveries.57 As Saint Thomas Aquinas once explained:
"There is a two-fold way of acquiring knowledge-by discovery
and by being taught. . . . Discovery is higher."58
Genuine teachers act as cooperative artists to inspire students
to think on their own either through coaching or the Socratic
method.59 The only authority that a genuine teacher
can appeal to is the rule of reason in light of existing evidence.
The student is then expected to use his own reason to think
through and understand-to know.60
But
the estimated 85% of present-day classroom time devoted to
the didatic/lecture method is merely indoctrination of opinion-not
the acquiring of knowledge.61 Generally, teachers
who lecture expect students to accept what they tell them
simply because they are the teacher. At best, this is
mere indoctrination of students with the opinion of the teacher.62
And, as any of us who have ever crammed for an exam know well,
opinions adopted and facts memorized as a result of lectures
are soon forgotten. Most students could not pass today's tests
if they were repeated only one year later.63 How
many of us adults could still pass the standardized tests
of our high school or college years? Indeed, how many of us
even recall any lectures we had during high school or college
much less the details of those lectures?
In
contrast to opinion, knowledge that is gained through understanding
lasts forever. What is understood cannot be forgotten
because it is a habit of the intellect, not something remembered.64
Dr. Adler gives the example of a student who is learning the
proposition that a truth is self-evident only if it is undeniable.65
If the student merely memorizes the proposition or accepts
that it is true because his teacher has told him so, he cannot
understand or know why it is true. It is merely that
student's opinion based on the authority of his teacher.
But a student who contemplates that proposition and engages
in a Socratic discussion with his teacher and classmates ultimately
will discover on his own that the proposition that a truth
is self-evident only if it is undeniable must be true because
its opposite is unthinkable.66
Oral Examination and Questioning Is Superior Because It Probes
Understanding
The
distinctions between memory and understanding; and knowledge
and opinion force the conclusion that oral examination of
a student, "the probing of the mind by persistent
questioning that penetrates its depths as far as possible,"
is the only effective means to test or measure a student's
understanding:67 "Only an oral examination
can succeed in separating the facile verbalizers and memorizers
from those in whom genuine intellectual skills are beginning
to develop and whose minds have become hospitable to ideas.
Written examinations, even term papers or senior essays, are
inadequate for this purpose. Where serious written work is
undertaken by the students, it should only be made the basis
for examining the student orally to see if he can defend his
thesis with some depth of understanding that goes below the
surface of his written document." 68
John
Henry Cardinal Newman, in his 1851 discourse on elementary education,
illustrates the ease with which the verbalizers and memorizers
are spotted in an oral examination by providing two sample transcripts
of oral examinations covering grammar, history and geography.69
The first transcript compellingly demonstrates the weak performance
of a student who has been indoctrinated while the second illustrates
a student who knows what he is about and has mastered what he
has read.70 For Newman, it is better if our students
understand "a little, but well" rather than
know a great deal of information about a variety of topics yet
be incapable of true analysis and understanding. It is better
if a student learns to "compare one idea with another;
adjust truth and facts; form them into one whole, or notice
the obstacles which occur in doing so. This is the way
to make progress; this is the way to arrive at results; not
to swallow knowledge, but (according to the figure sometimes
used) to masticate and digest it."
Legal Education Today Has Not Forgotten The Supremacy of Oral
Questioning
It
should not be a surprise then that even the "excellent"
products of our education system stumble when they encounter
the alien world of law school. Legal education today, in contrast
to elementary, secondary and undergraduate education, reflects
both an understanding of the importance of cooperative teaching
through the Socratic method, and an appreciation of the need
to test understanding through a probing examination. The enduring
success of the Socratic method in our law schools provides
tangible and practical evidence that the changes and reforms
advocated by Dr. Adler, Dr. Taylor, Dr. Senior, Dr. Quinn,
Dr. Redpath, Dr. Hancock, and others offer the best hope to
solve our educational crisis and, more importantly, the moral
corruption rampant in modern society.71
Let me be clear-legal education is not perfect.72
The faults of legal education include the use of a written
examination instead of an oral examination; use of the Socratic
Method divorced from Socratic principles, particularly moral
virtue;73 a change in focus from reading cases
as the raw materials for discussion to reading them because
they were the actual depository of a rule of law;74
and reliance solely on the study of American cases to the
exclusion of natural and moral law, and the philosophy of
law.75 Although well-designed essay exams can approximate
an oral exam, oral examinations are the only true method to
determine a student's understanding.76 Use of the
Socratic Method divorced from the moral virtues so loved by
Socrates leads to skepticism-a fault that many lawyers of
today possess.77 Limiting or orienting class discussion
to discovery of a single specific rule perverts the Socratic
notion of a free-ranging discussion about the legal principles
at issue in any case. Study of the great books of western
law78 and the philosophy of law provides the only
basis for young law students to understand and question the
morality, logic, and justice of American laws, and to form
an appreciation that the natural law must serve as a touchstone
and guide for any system of laws. As we now see, the excessive
focus on American cases and an emphasis on deciding legal
questions and enacting laws without reference to the natural
law ultimately produces a bevy of amoral lawyers who need
ethical codes to tell them right from wrong.79
Despite
these obvious faults, however, our present day law schools
have hit upon a formula for true education albeit somewhat
imperfectly.80 The emphasis of law schools on the
Socratic method to instill true understanding, and a written
examination to probe and test that understanding are an implicit
rejection of modern empirical education. Those interested
in true and real education of their children have a rough
real-world confirmation that true education is much more than
the indoctrination through memorization encouraged by the
lectures and standardized tests so prevalent today. Here is
confirmation on point from the former President of the University
of Chicago and one of the founders of the Great Books movement:
"I
see now that my formal education began in the Law School...they
introduced me to the liberal arts...It is sad but true that
the only place in an American University where the student
is taught to read, write and speak in the law school. The
principal, if not sole, merit of the case method of instruction
is that the student is compelled to read accurately and carefully,
to state accurately and carefully the meaning of what he has
read, to criticize the reasoning of opposing cases, and to
write very extended examinations in which the same standards
of accuracy, care, and criticism are imposed. It is too bad
that this experience is limited to very few students and that
at about age twenty-two. It is unfortunate the teachers have
no training in the liberal arts as such. The whole thing is
on a rough-and-ready basis, but it is grammar, rhetoric, and
logic just the same, and a good deal better than none at all.
One
may regret too that the materials upon which these disciplines
are employed are no more significant than they are. No case
book is a great book...One may regret that no serious attempt
is made in the law schools to have the student learn anything
about the intellectual history of the intellectual content
of the law. At only one law school that I know of is it thought
important to connect the law with ethics and politics... Law
school did begin my formal education. Though it was too little
and too late, it was something, and I shall always be grateful
for it." - Robert M. Hutchins [from The Autobiography
of an Uneducated Man]
We Must Remember That Many of Us Are Products of Modern Education
As
parents, we must constantly remind ourselves that we too are
products of modern empirical education. Having been raised
and educated in a system that emphasizes lectures, and rewards
memorization with grades or percentile rankings based on standardized
tests, we naturally tend to consider them a measure of how
well "educated" our own children are. Homeschooling
parents have seen through the errors and flaws of our educational
system and have gone to great sacrifice to make certain their
children receive a proper education. What a shame then to
repeat the errors of our modern system by insisting entirely
on memorization, high grade point averages, and high scores
on standardized tests; yet never engaging our children poetically
or Socratically to probe and expand true understanding, and
inspire a true love and desire to learn.
To
be sure, there is no need, indeed there is no place, for a heavy-handed,
Professor Kingsfield-like Socratic discussion in the home. But
children respond wonderfully to the more-genteel approach to
Socratic and pre-Socratic (poetic) education advocated by Dr.
Senior, Dr. Quinn, Dr. Taylor and others.81 As Socrates
himself suggested: "No compulsion then, my good friend,
. . . in teaching children; train them by a kind of game, and
you will be able to see more clearly the natural bent of each."
82 This form of the Socratic method has succeeded
with third graders even in primarily scientific/empirical topics
such as arithmetic.83 The results of Dr. Adler's
Paideia program are further evidence of the effectiveness of
the coaching and Socratic methods at all levels of education.84
It
is these experiences that served as the inspiration for the
combination of the poetic method and Socratic seminars offered
by the Angelicum Academy-to help and guide homeschooling parents
and their children in the poetic and Socratic aspects of a
true education. Although some homeschooling parents and students
must submit to standardized tests imposed by the state or
are required to submit grades to qualify for diplomas, they
can render what is due to Caesar without abandoning true educational
principles. Homeschooling parents can and should look
for opportunities every day to engage their children on a
Socratic level, and to use this and other means to probe their
understanding.
The Way We Teach and Test Our Children Determines What and
How We Teach Them
As
we educate our children, we must keep Dr. Adler's warning
foremost in our minds: the way we test or examine our children,
determines what and how we teach them. If we want our children
to be moral and intelligent citizens, we must act as cooperative
teachers that cause our children to discover the delight and
wonder of lifelong learning.85
* B.A., University of Washington, Seattle, WA (1983); J.D. Seattle
University School of Law, Seattle, WA (1987); Former Law School
Admission Test Instructor at Kaplan Educational Center, Colorado
Springs, Colorado; Admitted to Bars of U.S Supreme Court, Washington,
Colorado, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals; Practicing Trial Lawyer, Labor & Employment
Law. 1
2 The Dialogues of Plato 403 (B. Jowett trans., 4th
ed. 1953) (as cited in Cicero infra)
2
The standardized achievement tests given at grade schools
and junior high schools throughout the country are too numerous
to mention. One example is the Washington Assessment of Student
Learning (WASL) given to students in 4th, 7th and 10th grade.
Those in the 10th grade are required to pass before moving
on to the next grade.
3
The Educational Testing Service (http://www.ets.org) dominates
the standardized testing market. As ETS explains, it
is "a private nonprofit company, it is dedicated to serving
the needs of individuals, educational institutions and agencies,
and governmental bodies in 181 countries. ETS develops and
annually administers more than 11 million tests worldwide
on behalf of clients in education, government and business."
Id. at http://206.252.130.135/html_files/text-only-version/information.html.
For example, the ETS reports that in 1998-1999, it administered
2,468,60 SAT I-Reasoning Tests; 2,136,000 Preliminary SAT/
National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Tests; 474,000 GRE-Graduate
Record Examinations General Tests; 442,000 SAT II-Subject
Tests; and 201,000 GMAT-Graduate Management Admission Tests;
and numerous other tests. Id. The ETS has been the subject
of some criticism both as to its methods and its virtual stranglehold
over the admission testing process. See e.g. Nicholas Lemon,
The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy
(Farrar Straus & Giroux 1999).
4
LSAT refers to the Law School Admission Test, a product of
the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) (http://www.lsac.org/).
The LSAC describes itself as "a nonprofit, corporation whose
members are 197 law schools in the United States and Canada.
Of these, 183 law schools are located in the United States;
15 are in Canada. Headquartered in Newtown, Pennsylvania,
about 30 miles north of Philadelphia, LSAC is best known for
administering the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). We administered
about 104,000 LSATs last year. . . .The LSAT is a half-day
standardized test required for admission to all 197 law schools
that are members of the Law School Admission Council (LSAC).
It provides a standard measure of acquired reading and verbal
reasoning skills that law schools can use as one of several
factors in assessing applicants. The test is administered
four times a year at hundreds of locations around the world."
Id. at http://www.lsac.org/about-the-lsat.asp. The LSAT
is a five-section, multiple-choice, standard-scored "aptitude"
test, followed by a 30-minute writing sample. Taking the test
requires 3 hours and 25 minutes, not including rest breaks
and the time needed for the distribution and collection of
test materials, as well as other test center procedures. The
test itself generally consists of three different multiple-choice
question-types: (1) Reading Comprehension - about 26-28 questions,
arranged into four sets, each containing a passage followed
by 6-8 questions; (2) Analytical Reasoning (also called Logic
Games or the "matrix" type)-approximately 24 questions, arranged
in four sets of analytical problems or "set ups" with 5-7
questions a piece; and (3) Logical Thinking - around 24-26
questions that are not for the most part grouped into sets.
The LSAT is scored on a scale of 120-180. The average score
is 151, but most competitive law schools look for candidates
with scores that are significantly higher. The LSAT score
is a three-digit number ranging from 120-180, determined by
the number of correct answers on the four scored sections,
generally covering a total of about 96-104 questions.
5
Although law schools do consider a variety of criteria for
admission (e.g. GPA, LSAT score, letter of interest, extracurricular
activities, and recommendations), the two primary factors
are student GPA and LSAT score. See e.g. http://condor.stcloudstate.edu/~prelaw/lsat.html.
Every year, the LSAC publishes grids showing the relative
GPA/LSAT score for all admitted students for each law school.
Generally, nearly every grid for every law school shows a
direct correlation between high GPA and high LSAT score, and
subsequent admission. As explained by a publication
of the University of Oklahoma: "Admission to law school is
based on competition. For example, if a school only has 100
openings in their freshman class, and 400 people apply, then
you can see that the competition is going to be rather stiff.
As a rough rule or average, the nationally famous schools,
such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, or California, will choose
most of their students from those who have made 162 or over
on the LSAT and have a 3.5 GPA or better. Most state universities,
such as the University of Oklahoma, will take the bulk, but
not all, of their students from a 155 LSAT and a 3.00 GPA
on up. For someone who has less than 150 LSAT and less than
a 3.0 GPA, there are many private law schools which will admit
students in these instances." See http://www.ou.edu/cas/psc/pre-lawnew.htm.
6
The phrase "Socratic Method" is used in this article not because
it is an accurate description or reflection of Socrates' practice
of asking questions but because it is the phrase most often
used to describe classic legal education. As explained in
note 72 infra, the phrase is, at best, an inappropriate descriptor.
7
See e.g. James Worth, From Where I Sit, 1 Washington &
Lee University Law News 8 (1996). As a University Counselor,
Dr. Worth saw 15 or 20 law students annually who, although
describing intense suffering and mental anguish, had no diagnosable
psychiatric disorder-they simply failed to realize that the
majority of their fellow classmates had similar feelings but
were doing a better job of appearing nonchalant while "dying
on the inside". Dr. Worth explains the cause: "The law
classroom experience is unlike anything he has ever known.
The Socratic method is an in-your-face method of teaching
that is based on a legal system designed to be adversarial.
Even the more gentle professors take the gloves off from time
to time. The ones who play hardball can be savage. He
finds himself sweating before he goes to class, feeling his
heart racing. Getting mentally up for the classroom
experience sometimes seems to take more energy than he can
summon. In his undergraduate days there was a steady stream
of grades, quizzes, papers, and midterms that acted like a
radio beacon guiding him along toward success. He knew
exactly where he was. By late October, he found himself over
8 weeks into the term without the foggiest notion of how well
he was doing or how he stacked up with his peers. He is at
sea in the dark without a compass or a light. He finds
it hard not to worry and even brood about his situation."
8
Adler, Liberal Schooling in the Twentieth Century (1962),
as reprinted in Reforming Education pp. 148-49
(MacMillan 1988). Dr Adler had similar comments for today's
high school graduates: "We must face the fact that the graduates
of our high schools, as they are currently operated do not
enter college with sufficient training in the liberal arts
or a sufficient appreciation of the humanities. They
are neither well-read nor are they able to read well.
Their proficiency in writing, speaking, and listening is as
poor, if not poorer. Their general intellectual orientation,
if they have any at all, is likely to be fuzzy and foggy.
They are hardly disciplined initiates into the world of learning,
equipped with the skills of learning to a degree which warrants
their pursuing specialized studies at the college level. And
if a college does nothing at all to remedy their obvious deficiencies
in the liberal arts, it makes a travesty out of the Bachelor
of Arts degree which it will confer on some of them four years
later." Id.
9
See e.g. Willenberg, The Socratic Method, The Brattler:
Harvard Extension School Writing Program Magazine, (Fall 1997)
(a law student describing her experience being questioned
by Professor MacLeod, a strict adherent to the socratic method);
Broudy, Socrates and the Teaching Machine, 44 Phi Delta Kappan
243 (1963).
10
See e.g. R. Hyman, Ways of Teaching 45, 53 (1970) (as
cited in Cicero infra at 1016).
11
See supra note 5 and infra note 67.
12
Cicero, Piercing the Socratic Veil: Adding an Active Learning
Alternative in Legal Education, 15 William Mitchell L.
Rev. 1011, 1014 (1989)
13
Id. (citations omitted)
14
In reality, no two professors use the Socratic method in the
same way. Some vary how they begin from stating the
history of the case themselves to going directly to the first
important question. Professors, like judges, juries,
and clients, will vary widely on what they consider important,
the types of questions they will ask, the scope of their inquiry,
and the positions they take. Often, Professors adopt
erroneous or ridiculous positions to test the students understanding
and analytical ability. Indeed, Professor Langdell is
quoted as telling Harvard Law School to: "Warn students that
I entertain heretical opinions, which they are not to take
as law". Many professors also use a hybrid of the Socratic
process known as "problem solving". Becker D., My Two Cents
On Changing Times, 76 Washington University Law Quarterly,
Spring 1998 (published at http://ls.wustl.edu/wulq/76-1/761-05.html)
15
Cicero supra at 1016 ("No one however, is predicting the death
of the Socratic system as a way to teach law students").
16
Charles Dickens, David Copperfield p. 340 (Wordsworth
1992) ("'It don't matter,' said Traddles. 'I began, by means
of his assistance, to copy law writings. that didn't answer
very well; and then I began to state cases for them, and make
abstracts, and do that sort of work. For I am a plodding kind
of fellow, Copperfield, and had learnt the way of doing such
things pithily. Well! That put it in my head to enter myself
as a law student . . ." - Traddles goes on to relate his progress
on payment of 100 pounds to apprentice to a law firm).
17
See Stephen M. Johnson, www.lawschool.edu: Legal Education
in the Digital Age, Mercer University School of Law, merlin.law.mercer.edu/elaw/future.htm
(citing Steve Sheppard, Casebooks, Commentaries and Curmudgeons:
An Introductory History of Law in the Lecture Hall, 82
Iowa L. Rev. 547, 553 (1997); Mark W. Bailey, Early Legal
Education in the United States: Natural Law Theory and Law
as a Moral Science, 48 J. Legal Educ. 311 (1998)).
18
See Bruce Kimball, "Warn Students That I Entertain Heretical
Opinions, Which They Are Not to Take as Law": The Inception
of Case Method Teaching in the Classrooms of the Early C.C.
Langdell, 1870-1883, reprinted at www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/lhr17_1frm.html.
19
See J. Osborne, The Paper Chase (1971); Paul Wangerin,
Teaching Methodology, John Marshall Law School, reprinted
at www.wcbcourses.com/wcb/schools/LEXIS/99Law11/wangeri/2/courseinfo.html.
20
Id; see also Broudy, Socrates and the Teaching Machine,
44 Phi Delta Kappan 243 (1963).
21
Law schools have adopted the modern method of grading (which
is critiqued infra). Many schools grade exams anonymously
and do not allow a grade for class participation. Once
the Professor turns in the grades, many law schools let the
professors know which students received which grade. As a
general rule, Professors find a favorable correlation between
class performance and scores on the written examination.
22
Cicero, supra.
23
Steve Sheppard, Casebooks, Commentaries and Curmudgeons:
An Introductory History of Law in the Lecture Hall, 82
Iowa L. Rev. 547, 553 (1997); Mark W. Bailey, Early Legal
Education in the United States: Natural Law Theory and Law
as a Moral Science, 48 J. Legal Educ. 311 (1998).
Although the Socratic method remains predominant in law schools
today, it has seen changes at various schools or among certain
professors. For example, one commentator reports that the
1960s saw a decline and change in the Socratic method in some
schools. This is partly because of the student-orientation
of the times and partly because teachers were, and are, rewarded
more for publishing than for the considerable time, effort
and energy needed to instruct in the true classic method.
Even more importantly, there was a gradual change from reading
cases as the raw materials for discussion to reading them
because they were the actual depository of a rule of law-thus,
"the destination of learning-the rule of a case-had in many
classes became more important than the process of reaching
the destination." Wanger, Teaching Methodology, John
Marshall Law School www.wcbcourses.com/wcb/schools/LEXIS/99law11/wangeri/2/courseinfo.html.
24
M. Adler, Teaching, Learning and Their Counterfeits (1976,
1987), as reprinted in Reforming Education, 174 (MacMillan
1988).
25
M. Adler, Liberalism and Liberal Education (1939) as
reprinted in Reforming Education, pp.46-47 (MacMillan 1988).
26
M. Adler, The Schooling of a People (1957, 1958, 1976)
as reprinted in Reforming Education 117 (MacMillan 1988).
27
See generally Diane Ravitch, Left Back: A Century of Failed
School Reforms (Simon & Schuster 2000); Meier et.
al., Will Standards Save Public Education? (Beacon Press 2000);
Alfie Kohn, The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond
Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards" (Houghton
Mifflin Co. 1999); Susan Ohanian, One Size Fits Few: The
Folly of Educational Standards (Heinemann 1999); Peter
Sacks, Standardized Minds: The High Price Of America's
Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It (Perseus
Books 2001).
28
Adler, supra at 117.
29
This is not to imply that the system of education that prevailed
from the time of the Greeks until the 1850s was free of its
own problems or errors. As Dr. Adler observed:
"Now the chief difference between ourselves and our ancestors,
considering even those who lived as late as the end of the
nineteenth century, is not that their educational institutions
succeeded in the work of liberal education while ours so plainly
fail. The sad fact seems to be that at no time in European
history-neither in classical antiquity nor at the height of
the Middle Ages, neither in the Renaissance nor in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries-did schools, colleges, teachers and
administrators do a good job for most of the children submitted
to their care; and until very recently adults were always
left to shift for themselves. In every generation a small
number of persons managed to get liberally educated, even
as today a few can, in spite of bad schools and teachers.
Learning has always been hard; thinking always painful; and
the flesh always weak, weak in the teacher as well as the
student. The chief difference between ourselves and
our ancestors is that they, for the most part, talked sense
about liberal education, whereas we for the most part-I mean
our leading educators-do not." Adler, Liberal Education-Theory
and Practice, reprinted in Reforming Education, p. 110-11
(MacMillan 1988).
30
George F. Madaus and Laura O'Dwyer, A Short History of Performance
Assessment, Phi Delta Kappan, May 1, 1999 (www.britannica.com/bcom/magazine/article/0,5744,252003,00.html?query=university)
31
Id. (citing Frank P. Graves, A History of Education During
the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1920).
32
Id. (citing Keith Hoskin, The Examination, Disciplinary
Power, and Rational Schooling, History of Education, vol
8, 1979, p. 138)
33Id.
34
James Taylor, Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education,
Chapter on Descartes and the Cartesian Legacy, pp. 87-102
(SUNY 1998) ("What links Descartes and Dewey is their trust
in scientific methods of thought, shortcuts really, and that
they both, in different ways, either call into question where
thought begins (for Descartes, in the mind alone), or that
the objects of thought are constructed by the mind only as
a result of inquiry, as with Dewey.")
35
This is not to say that the scientific method does not have
its place in the classroom or to deny that the reformers may
have had other motives for the changes in testing. As
Dr. Adler explains: "[S]cientific method, knowledge, and ideas
deserve a proper place in the curriculum, together with, but
not out of proportion to, poetry, philosophy, history, mathematics,
theology, for all these differently exemplify the liberal
arts; and though we now see that the traditional "classical"
curriculum was too exclusively "humanistic" in a narrow sense
of that term, the problem is obviously not solved by throwing
away or corrupting what should have been amplified and thereby
invigorated." Adler, Liberal Education-Theory and Practice,
as reprinted in Reforming Education (1945) p. 112 (MacMillan
1988). Advocates of the reforms, point out that written exams
(later multiple choice exams) were needed for pragmatic reasons,
i.e., to test the sheer volume of students.
36
David F. Lohman and Robert M. Thorndike, A Century of Ability
Testing (Chicago: Riverside, 1990), p.22)
37Madaus
and ODwyer, supra
38
See Educational Testing Service web site (http://206.252.130.135/html_files/text-only-version/century.html).
Perhaps one of the most telling examples of the shift to the
scientific method in testing comes from the ETS' own internet
site which provides partial copies of the 1905 College Board
Examination (the oldest examination in its archives) and the
1926 SAT examination (the oldest SAT exam in its files).
Comparison of the two tests shows not only the dramatic shift
from written essays to multiple choice examinations but also
that students in 1900 were far more educated than our typical
college student of today. Id. In the representative
sample provided by ETS, in order to get into college in 1905,
students were expected to translate a Greek passage of Homer's
Iliad; write a two-page essay on one of four topics- a scene
from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice or Julius Caesar, a
scene from Ivanhoe, or a passage from Sir Roger Coverly's
papers; and answer in writing two questions each on Ancient
History; American History; Geography, Physics and Arithmetic.
Id. In contrast, the sample of the 1926 SAT test contains
five math problems, and five early-type multiple choice questions
on other subjects. Id. The earliest standardized test
for teachers in the ETS archives is from 1945 and contains
only multiple-choice questions. Id.
39
Id.
40
Id. (citing Franz Samelson, Was Early Mental Testing (a) racist
inspired (b) objective science (c) a technology for democracy
(d) the origin of the multiple-choice examination (e) none
of the above, at pp 113-27 of Michael M. Sokal; James McKeen
Cattell, Mental Anthropometry: Nineteenth-Century
Science and Reform and the Origins of Psychological Testing,
Psychological Testing and American Society, 1890-1930 (New
Brunswick, N.J.; Rutgers University Press, 1986, pp. 21-45))
41
Id. (citing D. Starch and E.C. Elliot, Reliability of Grading
High School Work in English, School Review, vol 1, 1912,
pp. 442-57; and idem, Reliability of Grading Work in Mathematics,
School Review, vol. 21, 1913, pp. 254-59).
42
Mark Durm, An A is not an A is not an A: A History of Grading,
(1999); (see also http://home.hiwaay.net/~kenth/diane/column/p_050599.htm)
43
Id.
44
Id.
45
See Cross, L.H., Absolute Versus Relative Grading Standards:
What Does A Percentage Mean?, Virginia Polytechnic University,
http://eriae.net/ft/pug/standard.txt. By 1900, marking
systems based on 100 points or 100 percent "were pretty well
entrenched in many quarters, schools, and colleges as well
as civil service programs." Cureton, L.W., A History of
Grading Practices, Measurement in Education 2, pp. 1-8
(Summer 1971). Although the use declined for a couple of decades,
it is now very common for grades to be awarded on a percentage
score basis. Id.
46
Marita Moll, A Brief History of Grading, Teacher Newsmagazine,
1999 http://bctf.bc.ca.ezine/archive/1998-11/support/Grading.html.
47
Madaus and ODwyer, supra (citing E.E. White, Examinations
and Promotions, Education, vol. 8, 1888, pp. 519-22).
Virtually the same critique was uttered 110 years later in
1999. See Alfie Kohn, Grading is Degrading, Education
Digest, (Sep. 1999).
48
James Taylor, Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of Education,
Chapter on Descartes and the Cartesian Legacy, pp. 87-102
(SUNY 1998)
49
Adler, This Prewar Generation (1940); Liberalism
and Liberal Education (1939); Teaching, Learning, and
Their Counterfeits (1976, 1987); as reprinted in Reforming
Education pp. 9-10, 42, 173-75 (MacMillan 1988). Dr Adler
explains how today's modern student is affected by modern
education: "An American college student who, under the elective
system, samples courses in the natural and social sciences,
in history, philosophy, and the humanities gradually accumulates
the following notions: (1) the only valid knowledge of the
nature of the world and man is obtained by the methods of
experimentation or empirical research; (2) that questions
which cannot be answered by the methods of the natural and
social sciences cannot be answered at all in any trustworthy
or convincing way; or, in other words, answers to such questions
are only arbitrary and unfounded opinions; (3) that the great
achievement of the modern era is not simply the accumulation
of scientific knowledge, but more radically, the recognition
of the scientific method (of research and experimentation)
as the only dependable way to solve problems; and in consequence
of this, that modern times have seen man's emancipation from
the superstitions of religion, the dogmatisms of theology,
and the armchair speculations of philosophers.. . ."
Id. at 10.
50
Adler, Liberal Education-Theory and Practice, p. 110-11
(1945), as reprinted in Reforming Education (MacMillan
1988).
51Even
the mainstay of American standardized testing, the Educational
Testing Service, admits that all of its testing is based on
scientific principles: "Since its inception more than 50 years
ago, ETS has been a leader in the scientific measurement related
to test creation. As we round the corner into the 21st century,
we intend to maintain this leadership status. Distinguished
Research Scholar Bob Mislevy, along with teammates and fellow
researchers Linda Steinberg and Russell Almond, is developing
a new form of assessment design. By explicitly enabling test
creators to first determine what they want to learn about
test takers from a given exam, the design framework would
allow for more precise targeting of a desired skill or knowledge
base." See ETS 1999 Annual Report, available at http://206.252.130.135/html_files/text-only-version/science.html.
52
Id. at 111,112.
53
Adler, Liberalism and Liberal Education (1939) as reprinted
in Reforming Education, p. 45 (MacMillan 1998).
54Adler,
Teaching, Learning & Their Counterfeits (1976,
1987), as reprinted in Reforming Education pp. 171-75
(MacMillan 1988).
55Adler,
supra at 171-74
56Adler,
supra at 171-74
57Adler,
supra at 171-74.
58
Cicero, supra at 1017 (citing Denhart, The Active Learning
Alternative, Update on Law-Related Education 5 (Spring
1988) (discussion about the University of Minnesota Faculty
discovering that lectures are not the only way to teach; citing
Aquinas to point out that discovery is hard to come by in
the stereotypical large lecture class)).
59
Adler, supra at 167-175.
60
Adler, supra at 174
61
Adler, supra at 174 (citing John Goodlad, A Place Called
School (McGraw Hill 1984).
62Id.;
see also Cicero supra at 1012 (citing Vavoulis, Lecture v.
Discussion, 12 Improving College & University Teaching
185 (1964)).
63
Adler supra at 173.
64
Adler supra at 173.
65
Adler supra at 173.
66
To make this point in more vivid terms, it is analogous to
my days as a little league catcher who was told and lectured
repeatedly by the coach never to try to throw out a runner
stealing from first to second base when a runner was on third
base. Despite the fact that I had heeded his warnings every
time, my coach recognized that I never really understood why
I should not do so and that I only refrained from trying to
throw out the runner because the coach had shouted at me each
time not to do so. Consequently, the day came when, at a crucial
point in the game with runners on first and third, my coach
deliberately decided not to warn me again. Predictably,
I threw to second base only to see the runner from third base
score. Disconsolate and in tears, I asked my coach why he
did not warn me to which he replied that he thought I would
learn more from my own mistake than his warning. Although
I can no longer remember the team I was playing for, the names
of my fellow teammates, where I was playing, or even the coach's
name, the understanding instilled by that event remains seared
into my brain to this day. Never again did I repeat the error
during many years of playing baseball, and the lesson I learned
remains vivid even though my days of playing ball have long
since passed.
67
Essay tests are only effective to the extent they are not
utilized to test memory but more to probe understanding.
For this reason, Dr. Adler suggests that any written test
should be open book. See Adler, supra at 173-75. Multiple-choice
examinations and other similar standardized tests can generally
probe the memory not understanding (although it is anticipated
that many of today's test writers, particularly for tests
like the LSAT, would argue that their tests are truly designed
to measure analytical ability and understanding). Responses
can be offered on two levels: (1) experimentation of testing
understanding and analysis on paper do not translate to actual
ability to perform in real-world situations; and (2) the test
nevertheless suffer from the fundamental bias of scientism.
68
Adler, Liberal Schooling in the Twentieth Century (1962),
as reprinted in Reforming Education, p. 146 (MacMillan
1988).
69
John Henry Cardinal Newman, The Idea of A University,
Chapter on Elementary Studies, pp. 316-325 (Image 1959).
70
Id.
71
See e.g., J. Taylor, Poetic Knowledge: The Recovery of
Education (SUNY Press 1998) (also describing the IHP program
of Drs. Dennis B. Quinn, Franklyn C. Nelick, and John Senior
at the University of Kansas at pp. 145-166); C. Hancock, An
Opportunity for Genuine Educational Reform: Homeschooling,
Classical Homeschooling p. 19 (Summer 2000); P. Redpath, A
Philosophical Call to Renew American Culture: The Homeschool
Renaissance, Classical Homeschooling, p. 23 (Summer 2000).
72
Cicero, Piercing the Socratic Veil: Adding an Active Learning
Alternative in Legal Education, 15 William Mitchell L.
Rev. 1011 (1989)
73
As one commentator observed: "While Socrates may be associated
with the revered and feared law school classroom interaction
of teacher and students named in his honor, law students are
never introduced to Socrates, his philosophy or his teaching,
or the 'method' he actually used in his conversations."
Socrates and the Pedagogy of Critique, 14 Legal Stud.
F. 231 (1990); Jelkins, Practical Moral Philoshphy
for Lawyers, Socrates and the Socratic Method, www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/teachvirtue/socrates.html.
Socrates would be surprised to see his practice of asking
questions about concepts such as justice divorced from issues
of morality as they are in law schools. Thus, at least
one commentator argues that Protagoras provides a more appropriate
model for legal education. W. Heffernan, Not Socrates,
But Protagoras: The Sophistic Basis of Legal Education,
29 Buff. L. Rev. 399 (1980). Dr. Quinn points out that the
phrase "Socratic Method" is a virtual oxymoron in that "method"
implies an "objective" Cartesian-like approach to education
whereas Socrates was always interested in a "subjective" understanding
of what was within a student. See Dr. Quinn, On Phaedrus
(Audio Tape Vol. IV); see also supra note 6.
74
See supra note 23.
75
See e.g. J. Elkins, Practical Moral Philosophy for Lawyers:
Socrates and the Socratic Method, www.wvu.edu/~lawfac/jelkins/teachvirtue/socrates.html;
See also J. Elkins, Socrates and the Pedagogy of Critique,
14 Legal Stud. F. 231 (1990);
76
Adler, Teaching, Learning & Their Counterfeits
(1976, 1987), as reprinted in Reforming Education,
pp. 173-74 (MacMillan 1988).
77
See supra note 52.
78
See sidebar on the authors of the Great Books of Law
79"Laws
and the Rules of Professional Conduct establish minimal standards
of consensus impropriety; they do not define the criteria
of ethical behavior. Persons are not 'ethical' simply because
they act lawfully or even within the bounds of an official
code of ethics. We all know that people can be dishonest,
unprincipled, untrustworthy, unfair, and uncaring without
breaking the law or Code. That is why ethical persons measure
their conduct not by rules, but by basic moral principles
such as honesty, integrity and fairness. They do not walk
the line of propriety. They do more than they have to and
less than they are allowed to." Michael Josephson, Ethics
and the "Good" Lawyer, Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity
International 7 (Summer, 1988); see also supra note 5; Jeremy
M. Miller, Back to the Future: Lawyers and Legal Ethics
in the Past, 17 Western St. U. L. Rev. 17, 18 (1989) ("Ethical
codes oversimplify and numb the attorney to the hard questions");
Editor, "Ethics and Virtue," 1(3) Issues in Ethics
2 (Ctr. for Applied Ethics, Spring, 1988) ("The moral life
. . . is not simply a matter of following moral rules and
of learning to apply them to specific situations. The moral
life is also a matte* B.A., University of Washington, Seattle,
WA (1983); J.D. Seattle University School of Law, Seattle,
WA (1987); Former Law School Admission Test Instructor at
Kaplan Educational Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Admitted
to Bars of U.S Supreme Court, Washington, Colorado, Tenth
Circuit Court of Appeals, and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals;
Practicing Trial Lawyer, Labor & Employment Law.
80
Cicero supra at 1015-1017.
81
See Taylor supra note 69.
82
Great Dialogues of Plato 336 (W.H.D. Rouse tans., 1956)
(quoting Republic Book VII)
83Rick
Garlikov, The Socratic Method: Teaching by Asking Instead
of by Telling, http://home.hiwaay.net/~hmwkhelp/Soc_Meth.html.
Mr. Garlikov provides a wonderful transcript of his actual
discussion with the third grade and an assessment of its effectiveness.
84Adler,
Reforming Education pp. 217-317 (MacMillan 1988)
85
"Education cannot be completed in school because of the limitations
intrinsic to youth or immaturity and the inherent limitations
on any course of study that is appropriate for youth.
One of the essential forms of leisure activity is the continuation
of learning after school, for which schooling at its best
is only a preparation. The pursuit of understanding
and wisdom involves the effort of a lifetime. It cannot
be accomplished in youth, nor can the obligation to go on
learning be fully discharged while any capacity for learning
remains." Adler, The Schooling of a People (1957, 1958,
1976), as reprinted in Reforming Education, p. 120
(MacMillan 1988).
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