2Justice Ginsburg Out of Touch

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LAW TEACHING AND THE INTERNET

"But I am uneasy about classes in which students learn entirely from home, in front of a computer screen, with no face-to-face interaction with other students and instructors," said Justice Ginsburg, a former law professor at both Rutgers and Columbia Universities. " The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 13, 1999.

By
Phillip Taylor BE LL.B Barrister at law
Tutor LL.B Online for SPREE

I am saddened to read such nonsense from such eminent people about such an important subject as learning via the Internet.

Whatever background students come from, they should be allowed access to information. In my view, such access was denied to too many in the past, especially on financial grounds. Some, such as David Livingstone and Nelson Manuela, survived such obstacles.

Today, in our multi-disciplined and highly cultural society we should use every mechanism available to develop human understanding. That includes the Internet.

No-one (I hope!) is suggesting that the Internet would stand alone in the full academic or vocational study of a particular subject. However, law is a useful area for Internet study before the prospective lawyer goes for the vocational/skills aspects of the profession. I have always maintained that you cannot teach common sense in a classroom or by the Internet because these attributes have to be earned by sheer, hard work and some intelligence. This is the reason for the development of the BC and LPG which we have in UK. I refute the comments by the Singaporeans who have deliberately set out to create an apartheid in legal training to the detriment of their own student population.

For sheer cheek, I award Justice Ginsburg 5 out of 10 for telling us in the UK what to do when it comes to any form of distance learning when we have effectively started it off whilst the Americans are, probably, 3 years behind.

With the usual modesty, I will award myself 10 out of 10 for saying that the Internet is the Way Forward. And, by that way, if you want to comment on what people do, I can start by saying to the American people - why don't you educate the semi-literate prisoners in your jails who litter the place with self-inflicted ignorance.

In UK, the Way Forward outlined by British politicians of all parties, and by Prison Officers and trades unionists, will give inmates an aim in life instead of a stomach full of retribution and no redemption. I would urge American criminologists to take note of the success of some applied criminology after years of suffering under the 'Chicago' school where theory can never seem to be capable of practical implementation.

There is a way. However, I'm sure Justice Ginsburg could have put the cause of legal education back 20 years through a mixture of international ignorance and sheer academic prejudice whereby the institution is the only thing and Socrates rule OK.

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