All posts tagged: Relating to students

Sometimes Normal is the Best Medicine

Published by and

This is a personal story about how Temple Law has been a community for me. In February of 2016 I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer.  For a variety of medical reasons, I needed to start chemotherapy immediately.  The drugs in question have almost all the horrendous side effects of which you’ve probably heard—hair loss, nausea, problems eating, low energy. For about a month before I received the diagnosis, I had been teaching Property to a first year section, as I have done here at Temple for many, many years.  The class seemed to me to be going well, and—though several of my colleagues offered to take over teaching it—I did not want to give it up and become a full-time patient.  On the other hand, there was no way the students would, over time, fail to notice that something was going on with me.  The drugs were going to have a visible effect. “Everyone I’ve told so far has asked if there is something they can do.  And my …

Temple Law Classroom

Don’t Believe Me? Just Watch!

Published by

Maybe I am not that old. Yet sometimes I feel that way with my students. Perhaps last week did not help. In my clinic, we were talking about what students wear to interview clients when they dress down during the day for school and then have to see clients in the office. I told them about my first legal aid office in Cleveland in the mid 80’s. We all thought we had to dress down for our clients but knew we had to dress up for court. To solve this problem for women, we had the denim wrap-around skirt in the closet—any woman who found herself running to any court could use it and all of a sudden seem somewhat professional. My students laughed at it. Really?  They wore those? That was dress up? As the discussion moved to other topics, they kept saying, “Is that how they did it in the land of the wrap around skirt?” The problem got worse a few days later. I moved from my clinical class to my poverty …