Tax Lawyer's Blog

The inmates are indeed running the asylum.

Law schools have been under attack lately by students who believe that a law degree entitles them to a six figure salary upon graduation, but now we know the real reason why today’s law brats can’t find employment.

Paul Caron writes in Prof Denied Tenure for Using Socratic Method: 

Some students didn’t take well to Steven Maranville’s teaching style at  Utah Valley University. They complained that in the professor’s  “capstone” business course, he asked them questions in class even when they didn’t raise their hands. They also didn’t like it when he made them work in teams.

Those complaints against him led the university denying him tenure – a  decision amounting to firing, according to a lawsuit Maranville filed against the university this month. … [T]he  allegations in the lawsuit raise questions that have been raised and  debated about the value of student evaluations and opinions, how  negative evaluations play into the career trajectory of affected  professors and whether students today will accept teaching approaches such as the Socratic method. …

The Socratic style of teaching that Maranville used is hardly novel. But experts say that while it remains popular in law schools, there are  reasons many faculty members have never used it extensively with the current generation of students. … Walter Parker, a professor of education at the University of  Washington, said he teaches using the “Socratic seminar” method.

Students did not want to work in teams and did not want Maranville to ask questions. “They wanted him to lecture.”  They also complained, according to the suit, that he did not know how to teach because he is blind.

The department chair –- Scott Hammond, who is named in the lawsuit –- apparently agreed with how Maranville taught his courses and called him a “master teacher,” according to court documents. Hammond visited his class, and so did an associate dean.

But a few months later, during the spring semester, Maranville received  a letter from university president saying that his classroom behavior was not suited to his being granted tenure.

Perhaps, instead of whining about their instructor’s blindness these kids should close up those enormous earring holes, pull up their trousers, stop dying their hair purple and start enunciating the “t” sound in words like “button” and “cotton.” Maybe then someone will consider hiring them.

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