Professor Charles Kingsfield, explaining why his midterm examination will not focus on landmark cases and may instead include landmark cases, obscure cases, and hypothetical cases:
“I intend to test minds, not memories.”
[From The Paper Chase, “An Act of Desperation,” first aired December 19, 1978. Elaine and I are watching episodes of the show on DVD. We both like the goofy warmheartedness. Think of it: a television series about people studying. And no study guides.]
Saturday, February 2, 2013
“Minds, not memories”
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comments: 4
I wish I had more teachers like that. I always enjoyed that show. I wish it was on Netflix.
It is, but only as DVDs.
Yeah, do that now and you get bad evaluations and student complaints and the next thing you know your tenure review starts to get uncomfortable.
Indeed. I think it’s possible though, in a thoroughly un-Kingsfieldian way, to persuade students that learning is much more than memorization.
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