« Shifting Gears | Main | Rule of BadLaw »
Cold Call Close Call
Only one of this semester's Profs uses the old cold call method to elicit class participation. ProfContracts is sticking with his wonderful method of simply moving methodically up and down each row, calling on each person in turn, so you can always know well in advance if you're going to be one of the people called on in the next class. ProfProperty uses a completely volunteer system, at least until he gets down to that frightened little core that can't bring themselves to ever raise their hands, at which point he's assured us he'll cold call, if necessary. ProfConLaw uses a fairly inefficient row-by-row method, so you can know if your row is going to be "on call" on a given day, but you don't know if you'll get called on that day or not. It's inefficient because she doesn't seem to be able to keep very good track of who she has and hasn't called on, and I don't think we're moving through people at an adequate pace to get to everyone this semester (which is fine by me). But whatever. It's ProfCivPro who's sticking with the straight cold-call method, leaving us all wondering, every single day, if this could be our day to be in the hotseat.
Apparently, yesterday was my day.
Somehow I wondered if it might be. I had a feeling. I don't know why, but it may have had something to do with the fact that I skipped the last class last Friday (there were reasons!) and hadn't looked at the material at all in about a week. That's always a good way to put your name at the top of the cold-call list: Go to class completely unprepared. So I'd prepared a good response if she called on me. It was going to go like this:
ProfCivPro: Mr. ambimb, could you tell us what Justice Harlan was thinking in his Hannah dissent?
Me: Well, um, is failing to read a criminal offense?
ProfCivPro: (baffled) What? Why do you ask?
Me: Because I'd like to plead the fifth.
Wouldn't that be really funny, ha ha? But of course, when ProfCivPro called on me, I didn't say anything like that. Instead, I read from the book. Luckily, I had read the material she was asking about; it had just been so long since I'd read it or looked at it that I didn't remember what it was about. So ProfCivPro would ask a question, I'd scan the sentences I'd highlighted sometime last week or the week before, and just start reading one that sounded like it might be on the topic of her question. At the end of the sentence, I'd raise the tone of my voice so it would sound like I was asking a question, i.e. "is that the answer you were looking for?" I hoped this would signal ProfCivPro she better not press me too hard because I didn't really know what I was talking about, and mostly it worked. She'd just start talking and fill in the explanation that she'd really been looking for from me. Overall, the strategy worked, and by the time she'd finished questioning me, I actually understood what we'd been talking about. My final bit of luck came when ProfCivPro moved on to her next respondent at precisely the point where my previous reading (and highlighting) had ended. She even congratulated me on a job well done.
Not bad, considering I'd entered class planning to just throw myself on her mercies if she called on me. I'm thinking I better be extra careful for a while because my personal storehouse of luck is now completely empty. I guess that means my mock trial opponents this Saturday are going to have a pretty easy time of it.
Posted February 19, 2004 06:59 AM | law school
Wow, that sounds like my experiences in Admin Law last semester. Except in my world it reoccured every week and a half.
Posted by: Beanie at February 19, 2004 08:22 AM
My first year, all the profs were of the everyone-is-a-target-every-day school. In my mind, I told myself that I was smart, I had two years of work experience after college, I'd handled things much tougher than law school professors in my life--but then I'd walk towards the school each day with an upset stomach, completely miserable. Some of the profs seemed sadistic about it too, especially loving it when they could mock someone in front of the class. So good job bluffing your way through Civ Pro. Being an able bluffer, I think, is a important skill to know; staying up too late so that you can impress to your classmates isn't. Keep on bluffing and you'll be a better person for it, in my humble opinion . . .
Posted by: Evan Schaeffer at February 19, 2004 12:28 PM
You'll eventually get to the point where you no longer give a shit if your professor tries to embarrass you. I had a prof last semester (i'm a 2L) who insisted on calling on every class for like 5 straight weeks (10 classes) even though there were 100 people in the class. The first few classes I was prepared, but then interview season hit and i stopped reading. She didn't seem to understand that my attempts to make the entire class laugh were really just my way of saying "I have no fucking clue what you are talking about you worthless troll."
Posted by: Jeffery Lebowski at February 20, 2004 04:38 AM
It seems my close call may have been even closer than I thought. Yesterday Prof Property couldn't find any volunteers so he started cold-calling. His first subject answered simply: "I'm sorry, I haven't read." Prof Property was not happy. He was fairly nice about it, but for the rest he kept saying the poor woman's name and finding different ways to point out that she hadn't done the reading and that this was unacceptable. I'm not all that worried about embarrassment, but who needs that kind of abuse? Sheesh.
Plus, and also, I really do find class more interesting when I've done the reading. I mean, I may be an ok bluffer, but it's really better to do the reading. Too bad there aren't 30 hours in a day.
Posted by: ambimb at February 20, 2004 08:24 AM
