back to school, finally

So the swine flu recess is finally ended and we're back in classes! It was great to have some human discussion again, after 2wks of electronic discussion and it was much appreciated to actually discover what the profs expected and their teaching styles.

My Wed night class is "Intro to Human Rights and Humanitarian Law" and taught by an attorney from the US who is also currently head of the dept. She stresses that the field of law is based on authority. At this point in our careers, we most likely have no original thoughts and everything must be cited/quoted from the original source with a clear structure of argument. It goes something like this: "David Kennedy, on page 18 paragraph 3 of his 2002 article states that....Rosenblum on pg 4 argues that....I, therefore, question the motives of x, y, z." The discussion continues with a directly challenge with equally assertive vocabularly and well-founded examples. Its intense, requires a lot of prep work and a relatively strong sense of security or the ability to B.S.

Thursday night, I have a class that counts toward my diploma program entitled: Systems Approaches in Psychology. The students comprise of people from the MA program in family and children pyschology, Forced Migration and Refugees Studies (CMRS) and me from International Human Rights Law (IHRL). The tables in the classroom form a large square to faciliatate discussion (and I'm sure to discourage the socratic method that the pyschology dept does not embrace). As it happens the 5 pyschologists sat on on one side of the square, the 5 from CMRS sat on the opposite side and I, from IHRL sat at one end. Segregated by depts, we could have played dept Family Feud! My legal training and background became very clear when the prof responded to a student by gently saying, "Well, I don't want to argue you, but I see it a slightly different way...." and my head reared up from my notebook w/ a questioning look. I was stunned that a prof didn't want to challenge or argue!

So, I go from, "I am right. You are wrong. And I can prove it with x, y, q and z." to "I feel that...and we can't neglect the emotional needs of ..." As an new attorney friend put it, "Thats what you get for trying to personify law!" It's gonna be a fun semester!