Playing Games with Law
Z. Bankowski, M. Del Mar and P. Maharg, eds., (2011) Beyond Text in Legal Education
18 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2014
Date Written: 2011
Abstract
This collaborative piece explores the experiences of three friends, in three different law schools, who have used the same non-textual pedagogical classroom exercise. The exercise, which is based on a card game, is played without verbal or written communication and has been employed with undergraduate and graduate students, from within civil and common law systems. One objective of the exercise is to invite students to learn in a performative way by doing rather than simply reading or writing. Another is to foster classroom conditions in which students experience social (and legal) rules as context-specific, and recognize that these experiences are complicated by their individual commitments, which may or may not be reconcilable with broader and more entrenched group norms and practices. In this essay we reflect upon the challenges of teaching with this non-textual tool in the law-school classroom and celebrate the ways in which students are eager to confront and develop their own learning techniques.
Keywords: critical pedagogy, law and aesthetics, law and learning
JEL Classification: Z00, I20, I21, K00
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation