Rick's Taxonomy

Abstract

This Essay uses the influential educational work Bloom’s Taxonomy as a jumping-off point for exploring how Rick Matasar’s scholarship relating to leadership in and the goals of legal education provides a guide for identifying, prioritizing and pursuing the core values and objectives of the legal education enterprise in a time of profound change. This Essay briefly describes Bloom’s Taxonomy and its status in the educational literature. Then it highlights two ways that Matasar’s leadership scholarship displays kinship to Bloom’s Taxonomy. His approach to describing a problem, analyzing its nature, and synthesizing and evaluating possible responses to the problem is evocative of the pedagogical approach to the development of cognitive skills laid out so famously in Bloom’s Taxonomy. Finally, invoking the spirit of Bloom’s Taxonomy, the Essay derives from Matasar’s leadership scholarship two lessons about the desirable mindset for leaders in legal education. Matasar’s work models an unfailing commitment to core values regarding the academy’s role in serving individuals and society.

Keywords: legal education, higher education, Bloom’s Taxonomy, pedagogy, leadership