Do not reduce legal working groups at the UvA to homework discussions
Law students learn how to solve a legal case, but if they want to know why that case exists in the first place, participation in a working group is absolutely not enough, argues law student Nikola Edelsztejn.
I love my studies and I try to find ways to expand my knowledge of law every day. I love linking philosophical questions to legal doctrine and I can think of a ‘why does this actually exist?’ question every day, sometimes to the annoyance of my fellow students. Yet I find it difficult to express my enjoyment of fathoming legal (philosophical) theory at the UvA’s Law School, but I have been able to put my finger on the sore spot in the first half of my bachelor's degree: the seminars.
Thin ice
I am well aware that I am skating on thin ice when I criticise the structure of the programme as a first-year student, but during my studies I noticed that the seminars – in which, one would assume, the focus should be on gaining a deeper understanding of the theory, as well as on the exchange of thoughts about the systematics and the goals of law – mainly consisted of an integral debriefing of the assignments that had to be completed prior to the seminar.
I already noticed this in the first block with the subjects foundations of law and criminal law, but I thought at the time that this could be a coincidence. It would certainly be different in the next block. The fact that I have written this column answers my question: so far, it has been almost the same for all seven subjects that I have followed.
Explanation, but no clarification
In his L’inconvénient d'être né, the Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran fiercely criticises the human tendency to accept dogmatic knowledge and apply it to situations without feeling the need to understand why this should be the case. For me, Cioran summarises flawlessly what I believe is wrong with tutorial education at UvA’s Law School: students should do assignments based on the theory covered in the literature and – occasionally – lectures. The answers are then discussed in the tutorial. In reality, the answers are not discussed: they are simply counted as right or wrong. A thorough explanation is given as to why an answer is correct or incorrect, but this explanation invariably stems from dogmatism.
The correct answer is explained, as is how to arrive at that answer via the law and case law, but it rarely happens that the motive behind the answer is questioned. In short: we learn how to solve a case, but if we want to know why that case can exist at all, you have to be in the wrong workgroup.
I am firmly convinced that the majority of students only attend the seminars because failure to attend two seminars results in exclusion from the resit. I would also very much like to write a research paper on this subject, but that is beside the point.
Nikola Edelsztejn is a writer and a bachelor’s student of law at the UvA.
