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    The Paper Chase

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    Michelle Webster
    The passage describes Professor Kingsfield's harsh use of the Socratic method in his law school class, as portrayed in the film The Paper Chase. While the Socratic method aims to develop critical thinking, Kingsfield's antagonistic version lacks gentleness and respect, psychologically abusing students through relentless questioning. His sole focus on legal theory without consideration for students' well-being or practical skills is insufficient for proper legal education. Effective use of the Socratic method requires respecting students and combining it with other teaching methods like lectures.

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    The Paper Chase

    Uploaded by

    Michelle Webster
    202 views2 pages
    The passage describes Professor Kingsfield's harsh use of the Socratic method in his law school class, as portrayed in the film The Paper Chase. While the Socratic method aims to develop critical thinking, Kingsfield's antagonistic version lacks gentleness and respect, psychologically abusing students through relentless questioning. His sole focus on legal theory without consideration for students' well-being or practical skills is insufficient for proper legal education. Effective use of the Socratic method requires respecting students and combining it with other teaching methods like lectures.

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    A critique of the Law school in the popular film the paper chase

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    The passage describes Professor Kingsfield's harsh use of the Socratic method in his law school class, as portrayed in the film The Paper Chase. While the Socratic method aims to develop critical thinking, Kingsfield's antagonistic version lacks gentleness and respect, psychologically abusing students through relentless questioning. His sole focus on legal theory without consideration for students' well-being or practical skills is insufficient for proper legal education. Effective use of the Socratic method requires respecting students and combining it with other teaching methods like lectures.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    202 views2 pages

    The Paper Chase

    Uploaded by

    Michelle Webster
    The passage describes Professor Kingsfield's harsh use of the Socratic method in his law school class, as portrayed in the film The Paper Chase. While the Socratic method aims to develop critical thinking, Kingsfield's antagonistic version lacks gentleness and respect, psychologically abusing students through relentless questioning. His sole focus on legal theory without consideration for students' well-being or practical skills is insufficient for proper legal education. Effective use of the Socratic method requires respecting students and combining it with other teaching methods like lectures.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    In one of the first scenes of the 1973 law school film The Paper Chase, Kingsfield, the imperious

    Contract Law professor, informs his newest batch of students that he does not lecture. According to the Professor, students enter with a brain of mush and leave having learned to think like lawyers through intense and relentless questioning. Assuming, as we must, that Kinsfields method is replicated throughout this fictional version of Harvard Law School, there is certainly much to be desired. Kingsfield is a self-proclaimed advocate of the Socratic Method which vigorously involves students in the critical thinking process. Yet the Professors particular version of the Socratic Method lacks the nurturing gentleness that is representative of the actual structure of Socratic dialogue and was indeed characteristic of Socrates himself. Kingsfields viciously antagonistic variation is an overstated caricature of true Socratic Method which need not be so embarrassingly harsh and psychologically abusive. Kingsfield almost appears to be duelling with his students perpetuating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, all in the name of encouraging preparedness and deep thinking. Hart, the protagonist of the film runs to throw up in a bathroom after his first encounter with the notorious Professor. There are many tales of students going crazy and others simply giving up. One student in the film even went so far as attempting suicide. It is hard to imagine these incidents being the hallmark of a good Law School. Every student has a different way of learning and at no point does Professor Kingsfield take this into consideration, his staunch adherence to his variety of the Socratic Method would hardly allow it. This is not to say that there is absolutely no value in Kingsfields method of teaching, but simply that his particular brand is unnecessarily combative and there are many limits to its efficacy. Effective use of the Socratic Method requires genuine respect for the dialogue process and its participants, a respect which the learned professor failed to exhibit. It is essential that law professors be aware that new students are likely not practiced in the skill of public speaking. Public denigration of a student can be destructive to the psyche, while intense verbal duelling may at times work contrary to genuine understanding. When used properly the Socratic Method can be a powerful learning tool. Its focus on participatory learning and the advancement of discourse is well suited for teaching a discipline such as Law, where the goal is to learn how to analyse legal problems and think critically. The law is in a continuous state of change and the problems confronting the lawyers of today will most likely differ from that faced by the lawyers of tomorrow, consequently the development of reasoning skills that can be applied regardless of the question, is of paramount importance. Nevertheless, the Socratic Method alone is hardly sufficient to properly prepare law students for practice. The focus on legal theory does little to develop necessary practical skills such as proper client-counsel interaction. Additionally there is much to be said for traditional lecture based teaching which provides students with a basic understanding of key concepts from which they can then develop, through the use of the Socratic Method. One need not look very far to see the value of supplementation. The Practice of combining tutorials (which are generally more in keeping with the Socratic Method) with traditional lectures have proven quite successful for Norman Manley Law School which recently beat out Harvard Law School at the World Human Rights Moot Competition in South Africa.

    Although Professor Kingsfields focus on reasoning by analogy and critical thinking has many positive aspect his intense and unyielding severity adds nothing to his method. What is more the Socratic method alone without supplementation

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