When
I started teaching, I assumed my “fun” class, sexuality and the law,
full of contemporary controversy, would prove gripping to the students.
One day, I provoked them with a point against marriage equality, and the
response was a slew of laptops staring back. The screens seemed to
block our classroom connection. Then, observing a senior colleague’s
contracts class, I spied one student shopping for half the class.
Another was surfing Facebook. Both took notes when my colleague spoke,
but resumed the rest of their lives instead of listening to classmates.
Laptops
at best reduce education to the clackety-clack of transcribing lectures
on shiny screens and, at worst, provide students with a constant escape
from whatever is hard, challenging or uncomfortable about learning. And
yet, education requires constant interaction in which professor and
students are fully present for an exchange.
Students
need two skills to succeed as lawyers and as professionals: listening
and communicating. We must listen with care, which requires patience,
focus, eye contact and managing moments of ennui productively — perhaps
by double-checking one’s notes instead of a friend’s latest Instagram.
Multitasking and the mediation of screens kill empathy.
Likewise,
we must communicate — in writing or in speech — with clarity and
precision. The student who speaks in class learns to convey his or her
points effectively because everyone else is listening. Classmates will
respond with their accord or dissent. Lawyers can acquire hallmark
precision only through repeated exercises of concentration. It does
happen on occasion that a client loses millions of dollars over a
misplaced comma or period...
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