Abstract:

Lecturing, which emphasizes the instructor's power over the student, is a master-apprentice relationship of great power when the transfer of knowledge is the primary academic objective. But when the objective is critical thinking or problem-solving, and the development of qualities such as sensitivity, cooperation and zest for discovery, discussion pedagogy offers substantial advantages. To achieve these complex value-laden educational goals, both teachers and students must modify their traditional roles and responsibilities.

In discussion teaching, partnership supplants hierarchy and asymmetry in the teacher-student relationship. The discussion process itself requires students to become profoundly and actively involved in their own learning, to discover form themselves rather than accept verbal or written pronouncements. They must explore the intellectual terrain without maps, step by step, blazing trails, struggling, past obstacles, dealing with disapointments.

Such creative activity cannot be ordered or imposed upon the unwilling. Teachers can police attendance and monitor the memorization of theory by tests. But we cannot order our students to be committed to learning and willing to risk experimentation, error, and the uncertainty of exploration. Such attitudes are gifts from one partner to another.

European Law Schools are undergoing a radical change in the nature of legal research and scholarship. They were once dominated by pure doctrinal analysis, but the new generation of legal scholars are either abandoning doctrinal work or infusing it with techniques and approaches drawn from the American Law and Business Schools, leading to a greater ability to provide law students with a truly practical and global education.

The University, whatever else it is, is a conversation: a place for different pople, and different discourses, to meet and, by their exchange, grow richer. As George Steiner once said, 'the carnival of understanding and judgment is open to all'.

Keywords:

Legal Education, Law Schools, Case Method.