Kotze, G; Gravett, S J --- "Law teaching: a true vocation or mere prostration?" [2013] LegEdDig 22; (2013) 21(2) Legal Education Digest 23

• Law teaching: a true vocation or mere prostration?

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Law teaching: a true vocation or mere prostration?

G Kotze and S J Gravett

The Law Teacher, Vol. 47, No. 1, 2013, pp 83-96

There is evidence that the need to improve the understanding of the academic profession is shared by others.

Although some attention has been given to the study of academics and their profession, it has not focused extensively on legal academics in their role as teacher. In terms of teaching, in particular, literature tends to tell academics what to do, whereas what they actually do receives less attention. The choices that teachers of law make every day about subjects, and how they teach these, influence generations of law students, and thus warrant careful study and analysis.

Most available research about the culture and identity of academics is general by nature. In addition, little research focusing on the culture and identity of the legal academic has been done and even less where their teaching, in particular, is emphasised.

As individuals, academics belong to various cultural groups, amongst which is the culture of the particular discipline. It is known that academics closely relate to their discipline, and it is not disputed that differences within disciplines shape the lives of academics in significant ways. In addition, the nature of a discipline plays a considerable role in defining teaching, and influences how academics perceive and conduct themselves as teachers. Moreover, the culture of a discipline is a key source of the identities academics construct.

It follows that law, as a discipline, is very important in exploring the culture of the legal academic as a teacher. Law as an applied social science shares common values with other social sciences regarding education, which, in turn, means that the acquisition of legal knowledge has a strong social dimension. Becher and Trowler classify law as a soft applied science and describe the nature of knowledge within this grouping as functional, utilitarian, concerned with enhancement of (semi-) professional practice; it uses case studies and case law to a large extent and results in protocols or procedures.

The culture of the legal discipline is shaped by two distinct entities, namely that of the legal profession and that of the academy. Thornton explains that the legal academy aspires to produce law graduates who are able to function as legal practitioners, while simultaneously desiring to be respected as an academic discipline.

In line with the purpose of exploring the culture of the legal academic as teacher, I employed an ethnographic design type. Ethnography takes the perspective that the ways in which humans behave, construct and make meaning of their worlds and lives vary and originate within a specific setting or context.

Using an ethnographic design type, I studied three purposefully selected legal academics at a South African university. In addition to other criteria, I considered typical case selection (a typical law teacher was defined as a full-time permanent academic staff member of the Faculty of Law at a specific South African university, with undergraduate teaching responsibilities) and reputational case selection (law teachers seen by myself and the Faculty, in general, as competent, so far as their teaching function is concerned) during the sampling process. The three selected law teachers each had at least 10 years’ teaching experience; as a result my premise was that they were well established in the role of teacher, and would be able to provide a vivid picture of this role. In addition, I surmised that as well-grounded and experienced law teachers they would be immersed in a culture of teaching. The research was conducted at the institution where the academics work.

Since the aim was to uncover the culture of the legal academic as teacher, the focus was on discovering what and how law teachers teach, and the reasons they themselves give for what they do and how they do it. To this end, data was collected by three methods associated with qualitative research and an ethnographic design type, namely interviews, class observations and study of teaching-related documents.

The principal findings suggest that the participants’ primary professional identity is created around traditions rooted in law as an academic discipline. First, they define themselves as teachers and not legal practitioners, and consider teaching as their true vocation. Secondly, the participants express a significant emotional dimension that is informed and shaped by their relationships with their students. What follows is a brief portrait of each of the three participating law teachers.

Naomi, an associate professor who has been teaching law at the same university for the past 10 years, is an award-winning teacher. She views her primary role to be that of teacher. Naomi proudly talks about the fact that she has won ‘the lecturer of the year award’ a few times, and even says that she experienced this accomplishment as being bigger, and more rewarding, than receiving her doctorate. Her primary identity as teacher thus manifests itself as her true vocation.

Carol, a senior professor with a total of 15 years’ experience as a law teacher describes her primary role as legal academic to be that of teacher when she says:

I think my primary role is to facilitate the learning of my students, research is a component but to me my primary focus is my teaching because I work with first year students particularly, I think that foundation courses are vital to their success and their studies, so I would, I would perceive my primary role to be as a teacher.

Carol’s primary identity as teacher is unveiled through her explicit statement that she made a conscious choice to be a law teacher, as opposed to practising as a lawyer.

Adrian, a highly acclaimed academic who has been a teacher of law for the past 20 years, sees himself as more than ‘just a lecturer’ and describes himself as ‘educational manager’.

In his teaching role, Adrian identifies most strongly with the aspects related to the academic discipline of law and making sure he offers his students a good product in terms of disciplinary content design and delivery. He pays a lot of attention to the development and provision of a specific course or module and he expresses strong beliefs about how such a process should be executed.

Adrian is clear about his teaching objectives and that he does not aim to train legal practitioners: ‘My point of departure is not in the first place that students must be able to walk out here and do work attorneys or advocates do, I can simply not accomplish that’.

The notion that traditions of the discipline of law shape and form legal academics as teachers is obvious, and the significance of the findings lies not in the reaffirmation of this notion, but rather in explaining how legal academics’ association with the discipline influences how they identify with the role of law teacher. However, this study found that the participants’ professional identity is largely built on traditions rooted in academia. Their strong association with the academic culture, as opposed to the legal profession, which has distinctive values and norms, is discernible in how the participants conduct themselves as teachers.

The participants unequivocally define themselves as teachers and not legal practitioners. In looking at the participants’ intentions in making choices about their career path, it is evident that they made a conscious choice to teach and do not regard it as second best to being a legal practitioner. The participants’ strong teaching role identification reveals what Gee refers to as an ‘institution identity’. An institution identity is linked to a position or role fulfilled within an institution. Since this is not given to an individual by nature or accomplished by individuals on their own, it can be experienced as either a calling, or an imposition. This means that an occupant of a role or position chooses how actively they want to fulfil their role or position. In a world where work is sometimes equated with suffering, and where people often do not regard their work as a true vocation, it would be reasonable to argue that academia may be harbouring legal academics who would rather be exclusively practising law. The findings of this study, however, suggest otherwise, and expand on the work of Cownie related to the culture and identity of legal academics, who found that law teachers regard academia as a preferred career and true vocation.

A further illustration of the influence of the academic culture of law on the way the participants view and experience their teaching role is evident in how the participants characterise the nature of law as an academic discipline and how they teach their students. The participants do not characterise law as being merely vocational and do not view their task to be solely the training of attorneys, advocates or other legal practitioners.

The discipline of law is characterised by two basic approaches to law, namely the doctrinal approach, also known as the black-letter approach, and the socio-legal approach, also referred to as the critical or liberal approach to law. Law has been seen in the past as a discipline that lacks an intellectual orientation. This view originated from a traditional view of law as vocational, a view largely perpetuated in the profession. A doctrinal approach has a technical focus, and closely relates to the view of law as a discipline that lacks intellectual orientation, and that favours being taught to ‘think like a lawyer’. However, the black-letter view of the discipline has widely been challenged, and a socio-legal approach encouraged. This is true for the law teachers that participated in this study, who indeed reveal an orientation to critical analysis, rather than vocational skills by paying attention to both doctrine and placing contingencies of doctrine in their social context. In other words, their teaching does not only focus on the mastering of rules, but also introduces contextual issues, and it can, consequently, be said that the participants’ teaching is characterised by the principles of the socio-legal paradigm which is nearer to the core of the academy.

In addition to the reiteration of findings of the study conducted by Cownie in 2004, a finding distinctive to this study is the display of emotion and passion in the participants’ teaching practice. Although Cownie found that legal academics regard their teaching as important and that they get satisfaction from teaching students, the emotional side of their identity, as teachers, was not viewed in much detail. The emotional character of the participants’ relationships with students is a prominent finding of this study and brings to the fore that, as core to the nature of their teacher identities, the participants value close contact with their students and adopt a caring attitude toward them.

Strengthening the argument that emotion plays a big part in the participants’ make-up as teachers is the discovery that the participants take the measurement of their success as teachers according to student responses very much to heart. When these participants talk about themselves as teachers they often refer to feedback from students about what they liked or disliked about them and their teaching. They are however not able to talk about their teaching in terms of an understanding of how students learn. Taylor con- firms that when academics talk about themselves as teachers they often relate to feelings because they lack a well-developed conceptual understanding of teaching and its underpinning philosophies and values. At the risk of sounding judgmental, it should be emphasised that the aim of this discussion is not to determine the quality of law teachers’ teaching but to explain the essence of how they conduct themselves as teachers.

In studying the culture and identity of legal academics as teachers, I conclude that the cultural traits and traditions that organise the participants’ lives as teachers are primarily defined by those associated with law as an academic discipline, as opposed to those associated with the legal profession. I believe that although the participants may not demonstrate strong teaching expertise and knowledge, and although they base their teaching choices on general assertions and beliefs, they have come a long way in building their identity as teachers who regard teaching as their true vocation, in favouring a socio-legal approach when teaching students and in caring enough to build personal relationships with students.