Mc Gonigle, B.N. (Brianne)

Thank goodness for anonymous evaluations

The year was 2003. I was in my first year of law school in the US and I was required to take the course Civil Procedure. From day one I was turned off by the teacher. She came across as abrasive and unsympathetic. Her expectations seemed unrealistic (over 100 pages of reading per night!) and she moved very quickly through the material as if we all had 20 years litigation experience like she had.

After the first few class meetings I dreaded going to her classes. I knew that for every class I had to be über-prepared because she employed cold-calling and would randomly call out students to answer questions on the facts of a case or reasoning of a judgment. I would spend hours each day reading assigned civil procedure case law, taking notes on the reading and dissecting the reasoning of the judgments. More than anything, she would challenge students to critique the reasoning of the judges and to support their critiques with law and policy arguments. If a student’s answer wasn’t satisfactory she never hesitated pointing out its flaws. This used to drive me crazy. Why couldn’t she be more empathetic? Encouraging? And for goodness sake, why couldn’t she SLOW down? We were first-year law students! On her end-of-year evaluation I was brutally honest about my feelings towards her and the class overall. It was the first, and last, negative evaluation I ever wrote.

Thankfully it was anonymous.

I say ‘thankfully’ because fast forward to 2007 when, for the first time in my life, I started teaching law at Utrecht University, and to my great surprise, I adopted many of the teaching methods employed by my former professor. I generally assign large amounts of reading. Why? Because it is a skill to be able to process large amounts of information and pick out the relevant bits. I cold-call on students. Why? Because cold-calling is a proven method to boost student engagement and participation. I require students to critique case law and scholarship and to back up their opinions. Why? Because good argumentation is a skill that all lawyers should seek to develop. I also go through materials somewhat quickly. Why? Because, like her, I have high expectations of my students and what they can handle.

Though I may be a bit more encouraging and empathetic, many of the techniques that I learned came from the one professor who challenged me the most. I am a better lawyer and teacher because of her. After my first few years of teaching, I kept thinking back to my former professor. I was ashamed of the evaluation I had written. I decided to write her an email thanking her for being an amazing teacher and mentor. I wanted her to know that she had a huge impact on how I approach teaching law. I can only hope that in the future my students will be more forgiving than I had been as a student.

Mc Gonigle, B.N. (Brianne)