First Day of School

The first day of class has come and gone. I spent about 12 hours reading the articles assigned for the class. Yes, you read that correctly...12 hours. But, the reading was fairly interesting, and there was only one article I did not understand...aptly named the Garbage Can Theory. I was not quite sure what to expect the first day, given my last experience with school.

For those of you who did not have the "pleasure" of attending Law School, let me paint a picture for you. You spend a week learning how to prepare for the first day of class, and no, I am not exagerating. For each class, the professor picks one student to torture, I mean question, using the socratic method. As defined by Wikipedia,
"The Socratic Method (or Method of Elenchus or Socratic Debate), named after the Classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate rational thinking and to illuminate ideas.[1] It is a dialectical method, often involving an oppositional discussion in which the defense of one point of view is pitted against the defense of another; one participant may lead another to contradict himself in some way, strengthening the inquirer's own point."
As used by some law professors, the Socratic method is meant to strike fear in to the heart of every student so that every student has read and re-read and outlined each case to be discussed in class. Being called in in class is not a pleasurable experience, and I don't really remember ever volunteering any information in class.

So, with that background, I headed to class this morning. Half of my grade in this particular seminar is based on class participation, so I needed to say at least one thing during the class to show that I had completed the readings. My goal of saying at least one thing was accomplished, but I am not sure whether it was an intelligent something. The entire experience was rather "enjoyable", actually. Now, I just have to figure how to read more quickly!