I'm Not Kingsfield and I'm Proud

Glenn Reynolds reports that:

SO I WATCHED THE PAPER CHASE last night, for the first time since my first year of law school. As Yale Law students, a bunch of us watched it during exams and laughed at how the Harvard weenies suffered; there were no Kingsfields at Yale, the closest approximations being Quentin Johnstone and the very early Lea Brilmayer, but they were a far cry from Houseman. Of course, there were no Kingsfields at Harvard by then, either.

Which prompts Ann Althouse to inquire whether:

Would you want a Socratic professor? Would you want to be one?

As is well known, I am not a Socratic professor. Hard or soft. And, unlike so many of colleagues, I'm proud of it, as I relate in my essay Reflections on Twenty Years of Law Teaching: Remarks at the Rutter Award Ceremony, in which I reflect on my "progression from frustrated Socratic teacher to happy lecturer." In the video that follows I explain why I gave up on Socrates and why I think teaching students to think like lawyers, as Kingsfield claimed to do, is a bad idea:

Comments

[Joe]

Better to get law students to think like a sommelier, chef, dog lover, and aficionado of fine cigars and all that is good in life.

[realwest]

Hmm, well as a grad of Cornell Law School (waaay back in the day) I believe that the "Socratic" method of teaching doesn't work. Period.
Cornell did (and may still for all I know) believed in the Socratic Method - and I learned more from reading and the few professors who lectured about the law than in all the classes I took from professors using the Socratic Method combined.

[JC]

The majority of professors at the law school I attend use some form of the Socratic method, and I find that it helps keep me more engaged in the material. It especially helps if a professor is knowledgeable enough about the material to get into a good back and forth with the students. I've found that a good mix of lecture and Socratic method works fairly well and going too far in either direction has its drawbacks.

[The Pathetic Earthling]

I am a Chicago grad and Socratic done well is freaking awesome (Professor (the late) David Currie and Alan Sykes), Socratic done poorly is nightmarish (Richard Epstein (of who, politically, I think well, I just don't think he was a very good *teacher*)).