How one teaches is necessarily influenced by
what one perceives as the goals of legal education. Certainly,
the primary goal is to prepare you to be effective lawyers,
judges and policy makers. At a minimum, that includes helping you
to develop the ability to:
- think critically, precisely, and
clearly;
- express yourself succinctly;
- understand the expressions of
others; particularly those who are different than
yourself;
- understand human nature,
particularly the motivations and needs of your clients,
opponents, jurors, judges, etc.; and
- use the techniques of the legal
profession to represent a client in general matters, to
recognize where you lack competence, and to comply with
accepted ethical standards.
While it is hardly arguable that preparing you to be an effective
lawyer is an important goal, it is not the only one. Many of you
will be law makers and policy makers, thus training you to
understand the values implicit in the law is an important goal.
Another important goal is to train you to address in a systematic
manner your social responsibilities as an individual lawyer and
your collective responsibilities as a member of the bar. This
includes your responsibility to assist your community in
maintaining an accessible, effective and socially responsible
legal system.
Thus, my objective is to help you
continue the process of meeting those goals. The primary focus of
my teaching method is to provide you an educationally
sound introduction to the health care system and health
care law. Furthermore, given the impact race and gender have
on the law (and vice versa) my approach to teaching is to explicitly
explore race and gender as a component of health care
delivery and law-making.
A. Teaching Objective #1: Educationally
Sound Pedagogy
An educationally sound legal pedagogy is a
philosophy of legal education which is grounded in known
educational theory. To be so grounded, an educationally sound
legal pedagogy:
- trains you to solve legal problems
by providing you with working program for solving
problems;
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- provides you with the
opportunity to excel.
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- provides you with criteria for
what it is you need to do to excel and specifically the progress you are making;
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- provides you with the opportunity
to practice each new skill throughout the learning
process; and,
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- provides you with adequate
instruction on how to study for law school and this
course.
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Thus, it is my goal, through an educationally sound pedagogy, to
provide you with an opportunity to learn and to excel.
B. Teaching Objective #2: Health Care
Law Teaching Objectives
Health care law teaching objectives are
those objectives that relate directly to the substantive area of
the law. They can be divided into two categories: knowledge and
skills/abilities. The objectives of this course are:
- to provide you with a basic
understanding of the structure of the health care
system and health care delivery;
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- to provide you information about
selected principles of health care law (or black letter
law) and significant issues (or unsettled matters) in
health care law;
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- to help you understand the value
implications of legal choices and health care
law;
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- to help you develop and improve
your analytical skills including understanding,
issue-spotting, problem-solving, judgment and
synthesis;
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- to help you to understand the
importance of inference and intuition in problem
definition and problem-solving; and
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- to emphasize that "personal
neutrality" is not necessary to scholarly
objectivity.
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C. Teaching Objectives #3: Diversity-Conscious
Legal Pedagogy
Class, disability, gender, race and sexual
preference issues are such an integral part of our society (and
the legal profession) that we often overlook how the law affects
individuals with different backgrounds differently. In a diverse
society, such as ours, awareness of how different class,
disability, gender race and sexual preference are effected
differently by the law is essential. This is true whether the
person is a defendant, plaintiff, lawyer, juror, judge or law
student. Diversity awareness should be a normative part of the
value system of the practicing attorney. An education which is
aware of diversity:
- explores how racial, ethnic,
gender, class, disability, cultural and sexual
orientation are related to and impacted by the
structure of law. In particular, it illuminates the
connection between racial and gender issues and the
values, interests, rules and theories that appear to be
neutral but, are in fact a representation of the values
of the dominant culture.
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- broadly frames classroom
discussion so that we step outside the doctrinal bounds
of the law to critique the rules, the health care
system and legal practice; and,
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- focuses discussion on health care
problems, interests and values that reflect a broad
range of perspectives.
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