Book Review of 'What the Best Law Teachers Do'

Schwartz, M.H., Hess, G.F., & Sparrow, S. M. (2013). What the Best Law Teachers Do. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Pages: 355. Price: 29.95 USD (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-674049-14-7After almost 15 years of teaching, I am still flummoxed by the earnest, engaged student who takes the class off kilter. You know the scene. You pose a question for the class to consider, a question rooted in the materials students were asked to prepare in advance. EES (our earnest, engaged student) throws up her hand. She says she does not want to weigh in on that question, but has a different point she would like to make.1 Where does that moment go? On the one hand, you do not want to quash EES's enthusiasm; on the other hand, you want to keep the class focused at a particular point because it's an important building block.Enter Sophie Sparrow. She doesn't look like a rock star. #ThinkSparrow is not trending (in contrast to #ThinkTink). But Sophie has been recognized as one of the 25 most influential leaders in legal education in 2012, 2013, and 2014, and she was an inaugural recipient of the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism.In 2014 and 2015, I had the pleasure of working with Sophie Sparrow and Gerry Hess at a progressive teaching workshop at our faculty. They were the most graceful teachers I have seen in action: subtle, funny, focused, organized, thoughtful, and other-oriented.So, when one of my colleagues, let's call that person EES, volunteered a reply to a query Sophie and Gerry had put to our group that took us in another direction, I was rapt: How would this moment unfold? Sophie looked at EES and said in a calm voice, "That is not the question we are asking." She then turned to another colleague with her hand up and asked her to respond. It was so simple. I don't think EES felt suppressed, rebuked, or embarrassed because EES continued to engage actively through the workshop. As a member of the class, I wasn't distracted by the exchange, which was brief and unapologetic. Nor did not take us, and the discussion, off course. It was elegant.That is what it is like to be in the room with great teachers. You'll get a taste of this experience when you read What the Best Law Teachers Do. The book borrows from the genius of Ken Bain's classic, What the Best College Teachers Do (Bain, 2004). While re- searching the book, Michael Schwartz, Gerry Hess, and Sophie Sparrow toured the United States to meet and learn about the talents of 26 excellent law teachers. As the authors succinctly state, the project had three goals: to identify outstanding law teachers, to synthesize the principles that guide their teaching, and to document those principles in a way that is useful to others (Schwartz, Hess, and Sparrow, 2013, p. 4).What the Best Law Teachers Do has 10 chapters. Seven chapters focus on documenting how exceptional law teachers engage in the learning process. These chapters include evidence of how they relate to their students, set expectations, prepare to teach, engage students, provide feedback and assessment, and develop strategies for ensuring students learn lasting lessons. These chapters and another on the personal qualities of excellent teachers form the core of the book. Flanking the focus on the teachers' practices is an opening chapter that develops a working definition of exceptional learning and a closing chapter that offers some suggestions for how the book might be used.It cannot have been easy to narrow the field of professors to 26. The authors gathered nominations from law students, professors, deans, and alumni. They had a website with a call for nominations and reached out on listservs. They asked each of the over 250 people who were nominated to provide evidence of their sustained, salutary effect on students, a statement of their teaching philosophy, and two years' of student evaluations. That request narrowed the pool to about 110 teachers. …