Monday, January 31, 2005
Great Pedagogy
I've been struggling with a way to begin posting. It seemed I should have some momentous beginning... something that managed to cover all the major things I care about, that this blawg should strive to cover... public legal education, educational access, race, law, pedagogy... Already, you can see I've given up on monument. However, I think an email I received by way of multiple FWDs from Prof. Angela Harris about theLatCrit Conference provides a solid place to start.
I very often tell people that I would have dropped out of law school after the first semester if it hadn't been for Angela Harris. I'm the first in my family ever to go to college. My dad and I are the only people, on either side of my family going as far back as anyone knows, who graduated from high school. I set law school as a goal (a story for another time) when I was in 6th grade. My path to Boalt was long and anything but traditional. I'm nothing if not tenacious. So it is really something to say that after one semester, I was willing to give up the goal I'd spent 16 years working toward. (Again, stories for other times.) It is, therefore, equally something that anything Prof. Harris was willing to do was able to make such a significant impact. Angela Harris is a hero, and she is positioned at several intersections of my interests, so I'd like to start my blog with something related to her.
One of my professors used to joke, you could always tell someone had gone to law school because they number their thoughts. That's probably accurate.
There were at least 4 things that Angela Harris did to encourage me to stay. First, she, Prof. Rachel Moran and Eleanor Swift began The Center for Social Justice. Just before the Center was announced, when I was but a budding academic groupie, I recall walking through the law school parking lot, dodging undergraduate effluvia, and found myself behind these three amazing women. I'm not exaggerating when I admit, I was inspired and motivated by merely walking behind them. These brilliant women and their Center for Social Justice gave me a reason to apply to Boalt Hall Post-Proposition 209.
Second, Angela Harris encouraged, Prof.Eric Yamamoto (Boalt, '78) to visit Boalt and teach Race & American Law. I'd had a course of this title as an undergraduate with HayLo, but Prof. Harris assured me that Prof. Yamamoto's materials and approach would not be repetitive. She was right. While I think IHL is brilliant, a very good academic and an amazing writer, Yamamoto is all that AND a learner's teacher. I enrolled in his Race & American Law course and found a holistic and context-centered approach to teaching law. (If only I'd also had Yamamoto for Civ.Pro instead of that stodgy, old, backward-ass, thinks-he's-funny partner from GDC!) Not only is Yamamoto a superior thinker, prolific writer, and dedicated teacher, he's also an inspirational mentor; always making us students take time to "talk story". I'll never forget the day Eric brought Mr. Fred Korematsu to class. In law school, very few plaintiffs have names. So it was as astonishing as if your torts professor had invited poor Mrs. Palsgraf to the class on proximate cause. Mr. Korematsu was very real, in the sense that Mr. Korematsu was smart and plain-spoken and the sense that Yamamoto had (re)humanized what many of us might have thought of as, at best, a 40+ year-old injustice and at worst as a 40-year-old Supreme Court case (oh so relevant in today!).
The third thing Angela Harris did to encourage me to stay in law school is she allowed me to take control of my education. For example, I hated my criminal law class, which also happened to be my small section. It didn't help that I really couldn't take 99% of the people in my mod (and I'm sure the feelings were reciprocated). Our Crim professor didn't want to be there any more than I did. When he came into class the first day, he cited the grading system, and suggested we could vote to just draw lots for grades. I happily voted to draw lots and even offered to take a "P" lot. Alas, the 27 Red-Hots in my mod, outvoted me (talk about tyranny of the majority). Rather than attend that Crim class, I attended Angela Harris' Criminal Law class instead. Of course, I took the exam in my designated class (it was a take-home as opposed to Harris' in-class; which worked for me so I wasn't about to fight it). Angela also let me audit her Critical Race Theory seminar, which helped me retain my hold on the reason I'd come to law school in the first place. (Special thanks to my Legal Writing professor, who let me ditch her conflicting class to attend Harris' Crim class.)
Finally, Profs Harris and Yamamoto encouraged me to attend LatCrit, where I wandered around wide-eyed and drooled gah-gah at the sum of brain power. At the conference, I attended every plenary and enjoyed watching these superior beings hash-out meanings, definitions and project direction. Much more spirited, intellectual and inspirational than some other conference one might choose to attend while in law school. I didn't ditch a single panel. One of the panels was a most powerful "talking circle" on indigenaeity in Latino/a identity. I also volunteered to read and provide input on some "papers in progress." Some of those papers were being written by my heroes and professors, so it was a chance to get a sneak-peak as well as turn the tables a bit. There was also some "Free/Discretionary/Recreational/Spontaneous Caucusing Time" which, if you hung out with the right people, involved social lubricants and Trivial Pursuit (TM) (links avoided to protect the not-so-innocent). So, welcome to my Blawg. And if you're a future or current law student looking for some intellectual community, (or a reason to stay in law school), I highly recommend applying for The LatCrit Scholar's Program(the conference is in Puerto Rico this year!).
I very often tell people that I would have dropped out of law school after the first semester if it hadn't been for Angela Harris. I'm the first in my family ever to go to college. My dad and I are the only people, on either side of my family going as far back as anyone knows, who graduated from high school. I set law school as a goal (a story for another time) when I was in 6th grade. My path to Boalt was long and anything but traditional. I'm nothing if not tenacious. So it is really something to say that after one semester, I was willing to give up the goal I'd spent 16 years working toward. (Again, stories for other times.) It is, therefore, equally something that anything Prof. Harris was willing to do was able to make such a significant impact. Angela Harris is a hero, and she is positioned at several intersections of my interests, so I'd like to start my blog with something related to her.
One of my professors used to joke, you could always tell someone had gone to law school because they number their thoughts. That's probably accurate.
There were at least 4 things that Angela Harris did to encourage me to stay. First, she, Prof. Rachel Moran and Eleanor Swift began The Center for Social Justice. Just before the Center was announced, when I was but a budding academic groupie, I recall walking through the law school parking lot, dodging undergraduate effluvia, and found myself behind these three amazing women. I'm not exaggerating when I admit, I was inspired and motivated by merely walking behind them. These brilliant women and their Center for Social Justice gave me a reason to apply to Boalt Hall Post-Proposition 209.
Second, Angela Harris encouraged, Prof.Eric Yamamoto (Boalt, '78) to visit Boalt and teach Race & American Law. I'd had a course of this title as an undergraduate with HayLo, but Prof. Harris assured me that Prof. Yamamoto's materials and approach would not be repetitive. She was right. While I think IHL is brilliant, a very good academic and an amazing writer, Yamamoto is all that AND a learner's teacher. I enrolled in his Race & American Law course and found a holistic and context-centered approach to teaching law. (If only I'd also had Yamamoto for Civ.Pro instead of that stodgy, old, backward-ass, thinks-he's-funny partner from GDC!) Not only is Yamamoto a superior thinker, prolific writer, and dedicated teacher, he's also an inspirational mentor; always making us students take time to "talk story". I'll never forget the day Eric brought Mr. Fred Korematsu to class. In law school, very few plaintiffs have names. So it was as astonishing as if your torts professor had invited poor Mrs. Palsgraf to the class on proximate cause. Mr. Korematsu was very real, in the sense that Mr. Korematsu was smart and plain-spoken and the sense that Yamamoto had (re)humanized what many of us might have thought of as, at best, a 40+ year-old injustice and at worst as a 40-year-old Supreme Court case (oh so relevant in today!).
The third thing Angela Harris did to encourage me to stay in law school is she allowed me to take control of my education. For example, I hated my criminal law class, which also happened to be my small section. It didn't help that I really couldn't take 99% of the people in my mod (and I'm sure the feelings were reciprocated). Our Crim professor didn't want to be there any more than I did. When he came into class the first day, he cited the grading system, and suggested we could vote to just draw lots for grades. I happily voted to draw lots and even offered to take a "P" lot. Alas, the 27 Red-Hots in my mod, outvoted me (talk about tyranny of the majority). Rather than attend that Crim class, I attended Angela Harris' Criminal Law class instead. Of course, I took the exam in my designated class (it was a take-home as opposed to Harris' in-class; which worked for me so I wasn't about to fight it). Angela also let me audit her Critical Race Theory seminar, which helped me retain my hold on the reason I'd come to law school in the first place. (Special thanks to my Legal Writing professor, who let me ditch her conflicting class to attend Harris' Crim class.)
Finally, Profs Harris and Yamamoto encouraged me to attend LatCrit, where I wandered around wide-eyed and drooled gah-gah at the sum of brain power. At the conference, I attended every plenary and enjoyed watching these superior beings hash-out meanings, definitions and project direction. Much more spirited, intellectual and inspirational than some other conference one might choose to attend while in law school. I didn't ditch a single panel. One of the panels was a most powerful "talking circle" on indigenaeity in Latino/a identity. I also volunteered to read and provide input on some "papers in progress." Some of those papers were being written by my heroes and professors, so it was a chance to get a sneak-peak as well as turn the tables a bit. There was also some "Free/Discretionary/Recreational/Spontaneous Caucusing Time" which, if you hung out with the right people, involved social lubricants and Trivial Pursuit (TM) (links avoided to protect the not-so-innocent). So, welcome to my Blawg. And if you're a future or current law student looking for some intellectual community, (or a reason to stay in law school), I highly recommend applying for The LatCrit Scholar's Program(the conference is in Puerto Rico this year!).
