Week 1 Reading Reflection

Chapter 1

Since I've only completed one semester at SI, my tendency when I read chapter 1 was to evaluate it in the context of my experience as a law student prior to coming to SI. While most law schools have clinics in which students can get hands-on experience, the vast majority of legal education still follows the Socratic lecture method, even in small classes. The approach is pretty much the opposite of that advocated in our text: classes are lecture-based, there is a great deal of pressure to memorize and spit out information on the spot, and most courses base the entire semester's grade on one final exam. There is no opportunity for students or the instructor to evaluate how well the material is being understood during the semester; law school is a high-stress, low-retention experience, particularly in the beginning. Based on these factors, one might assume that legal education fails to do what it has set out to do: create competent lawyers.

However, I think it's worthwhile to reframe the evaluation. A point in chapter 1 that I found particularly interesting was the idea of pre-existing knowledge and its implications for education. Most legal professionals will admit that they learned the real skills of lawyering during their early years as practicing attorneys. While this sink-or-swim approach can be nerve-wracking for young associates, it actually DOES address most of the key findings discussed in the text. Because attorneys must pass the bar exam to practice in a state, senior lawyers can assume that the associates working below and learning from them have a minimum level of knowledge. Attorneys must also have some idea how to contextualize and organize ideas; again, the law school experience and the bar exam weed out would-be practitioners who can't meet minimum standards. Once they're engaged in the actual practice of law, associates have hands-on, community-based learning experiences that provide them with frequent opportunities for evaluation and growth. Therefore, I think it's valuable to view law school as a means by which to attain a standard body of pre-existing knowledge with which to enter the REAL educational experience, which is the actual practice of law, ideally under the eye of a skilled mentor.

I know that this might seem a little off-topic, but my first reaction upon reading chapter 1 was that it was too narrow, and viewed certain teaching and learning practices that are sufficient for understanding as necessary. To put it plainly, I didn't agree with the book, because my experience as a law student incorporated very few of the things that the text deems important, and yet I consider myself well-educated on the legal issues I've studied. By viewing education as more than just the classroom experience, and incorporating into it the "apprenticeship" phase of a legal career, I was able to reconcile the values from the book with my own education.

Chapter 2

I enjoyed this chapter a lot more than I did chapter 1; the discussion of novices versus experts was interesting and articulated some of the things that I've observed about teaching and learning. Over the past nine years, I've done a lot of work in the standardized test prep industry. It's a very specific kind of teaching, and it tends to focus on concepts that aren't necessarily helpful in a broad educational context, but accomplish the goal of improving one's test scores. This chapter made me think about the different kinds of students I've worked with; I've often been able to predict who would perform well on a test based on classroom interactions, and I think that has a lot to do with the students' fluent retrieval of information and their adaptive expertise. I really liked the metaphor about driving; it's one I've often used the explain how the steps for solving a particular problem would ideally become automatic and fluid.

One issue in this chapter that gave me pause was the idea of the artisan versus the virtuoso. I think it's implicit in the phrasing of the discussion that the virtuoso is the superior learner. But viewed in a real world context, virtuosity is not always preferable. If I order a spicy tuna roll, I don't actually want the sushi chef to use my order as a "point for departure and exploration": I want him to make me a spicy tuna roll, and I want him to do it quickly and skillfully. Similarly, a software designer who is a virtuoso might create a more interesting program that would fulfill a client's needs, but if he's charging by the hour, the client might prefer the artisan's approach to simply delivering what the client requested. I do agree that virtuosos are better learners and as intelligent, creative people, probably have a great deal to offer. I think it's important, though, to note that outside of an educational arena, artisans are just as valuable.

Core Competencies

The American Association of Law Libraries has only four general core competencies: 1) Reference and Research Services; 2) Library Management; 3) Collection Management; 4) Organization and Classification. I think that all of them are important; my experience in the reference department of the UM Law Library has especially driven home the value of the first and second competencies, which I see frequently. However, reflecting on the text, it seems noteworthy to me that there's no emphasis at all on instructional skills as a core competency. This is especially interesting because I keep an eye on the job postings in my field, and I've noticed that many of them ask for a librarian who can teach legal research and writing. Considering that law libraries are looking for librarians with teaching skills, the AALL might well want to revise its core competencies to include that skill.