do no harm:


idit dobb-weinstein: "teaching is action and thinking at once. What I try to guard against most when I teach is not speaking as if my answer were conclusive, so as to avoid (to the extent possible) any kind of dogmatic appropriation. It is understandable why students might wish to imitate their teachers, but there are different modes of imitation. I try very hard to avoid the mimetic appropriation that is immediate, passive, and occludes thinking. One other reason is that if I made clear what my views were, and my views appeared as if they were final, it would preclude the possibility of first, students challenging me and second, learning from my students. The relation between the student and teacher is, to me, a dynamic relationship . . . Teaching and learning is a movement that occurs between. In other words, we are at once both agent and patient, both teacher and learner. If we are not very careful, we can do a great deal of harm. And that, too, I have learned from my teachers, Maimonides especially.

I believe my task is to provoke students to think and to engage them in genuine dialogue and questioning. To paraphrase a rabbinic saying, 'I have learned from my teachers, and I have learned from my peers, but I have learned most from my students.' And that is a continuous process of learning."

Wednesday, 14 April 2010

property law: marriage is for man and woman, and women eat bonbons and gain 100 pounds

i don't believe in real anything. real lacc or anything else.
whatever happens here
is amazing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_College.

i love how people look down on you for going to a poor school in the ghetto.
i love it.

it makes me so proud.

i just found a bunch of old books left over from the book sale fundraiser.

too bad the bookstore is closing early due to the budget crisis.  3pm.
ridiculous. sad.

but hey all the free books that got trashed after the book sale are amazing.
i found hannah arendt eichman in jerusalem
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZwjNGDPUSPsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=banality+of+evil&source=bl&ots=ZyjBnK1ynT&sig=iDlHVX7uL-xXiG4-yGp4lkwZwrc&hl=en&ei=MLDGS-2eE5HOtAPH1MG2DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
djuna barnes nightwood
enviro science
japan
beijing
and nepal travel books.
happiness!!!!
and a book of hindu something the doctrine of the heart.

one time i found a free opera encyclopedia outside the library.

quizzing duffy in property law on the heterosexist marriage system
we are talking property
community property
he is decrying the bon-bon eating (presumably female) spouse.
the class was really getting carried away here.
haha. not.
seemed time to get serious about gay marriage since everything has to be so heterosexist conservative here in property law.
my cool classmate helped the follow up question.
and duffy seemed to answer this has nothing to do with property law. it was a little rude, in a subtle way.  i felt it. sort of subtext being: if i answer this question i might become gay so i have to dis you a little to make sure you know i'm straight.
but really it does have something to do with property law.
he reaffirmed that a valid marriage is defined by a wife and a husband.
BLAH!
funny.
but he likes me too much to talk down to me.
that was why it was impt to follow up about a question about
when you say domestic partnership what do you mean? a registered one?
he didn't really answer it bc i asked too much at once and got us sidetracked onto common law marriage.
research
http://www.sos.ca.gov/dpregistry/

really can't wait for class tomorrow
cultural anthropology is sweet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel
eric recs

i am glad about getting respect from duffy.  sort of.  duffy is the best teacher ever despite endorsing waterboarding in guantanamo.  no kidding.
found that out last term.
it was off the record as class wound down.
it was the perfect time for me to tell him about the foulness in the legal dept.
because even if he does endorse waterboarding, he is appalled by a lack of professionalism, and has too much pride to let the craft steer too far off course for long.
his tell tale jibe at the dilution of quality in the department regarding
spoon-feeding etc has not gone unnoticed.

happy to have dropped two classes.
the discovery is that if i am mentally numbed by the teaching style, regardless of the objective quality, it means i learn nothing to negligible.
in a sense it is my fault.

i will honestly miss lanzer, despite resenting his sexist statements prior.  he is so dry and acerbic, and sarcastic.  its dark and funny.  and the sexist part is so textbook 1950's.    he always reminded me of richard burton in who's afraid of virginia woolf.  i mean that as a compliment.

and as for vargas's legal writing, he's teaching it like we are in kindergarten, so my brain completely shuts off, due to the massive level of condescention.  his family law is more fun, more theoretical, and i don't like boring grammar lessons.
hello i read finnegan's wake already!
six hours of his tedious approach is more than i can take.
three hours will be enough.
about something interesting.
the family.
especially after he really goofed it by screening such a sexist film a year ago.
just so i can know he has no taste, imagination, or respect for women.
can't believe he thought i'd want to go to class to hear every trashy sexist epithet in the book and watch a bad movie.
pure laziness and lack of imagination.
he would not imagine how smart we are and how much respect we deserve or crave.
he's still a nice guy though, with nice power points, nice outlines, etc.
and he says the LSAT is hard.
hmm.
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