In a post today, Kaimi responds to a fequent student criticism of law school pedagogy. That criticism is that many students don’t learn much from hearing other students speak in class. In large classes (not seminars), many students think that time is wasted when so much class time is devoted to other students talking. They feel that they are taking the class to learn from the professor, not from other students.

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There is an interesting discussion raised over at PrawfsBlawg about how law professors should enforce student preparedness in the classroom. Mike Dimino (law, Widener) (guesting at PrawfsBlawg and a former guest blogger here at Concurring Opinions) described a chronically unprepared student and noted the strong punishment he intends to deliver: “[I] plan to call on the lazy student every day for the rest of the semester (or at least a suitably lengthy period short of the whole semester) plus decrease his grade one step for poor class participation, but I suspect such treatment is not nearly severe enough (plus it wastes the time of other members of the class).” In a follow-up post, Mike noted that enforcing preparedness “is a lesson in professionalism, encouraging students who would otherwise slack off to expend the effort necessary to learn.” He argued that “student unpreparedness fosters an attitude of apathy that lowers the expectations of everyone and makes it impossible to teach to the high end of the class.”

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