Optimally Bad Teaching

When just-signed-off Joe Slater won the University-wide teaching award here at Toledo today, I was forced to remind him of the old maxim that if you never get pulled over, that means you aren't driving fast enough.  Speedy driving gets you where you need to be sooner, and once there, you can do useful (or fun) stuff.  You don't want to get a ticket every single time you drive, because that slows you down and quickly becomes cost prohibitive.  But if you aren't getting pulled over for warnings every once and a while, it means you probably are missing out.

Similarly, if you win the teacher of the year award, it means you're putting too much of your heart and soul into teaching.  Sure, everyone wants to be a good teacher, to help students have those lightbulb moments and be part of the transformative experience which is a J.D. education.  But if you're the best teacher, well, that means you must be missing out.

With my tongue squarely in cheek, I note that the effects of good teaching are particularly damaging for junior law professors.  Good teachers get assigned "first-year" and "bar" classes; first years are more needy than their more senior (and cynical) peers, and bar classes have larger enrollments than "electives."  Even if a good teacher dodges a bar class or 1L assignment, word gets around and students flock to whatever elective the teacher has undertaken.  More students means more exams and more exams means less time for adding footnotes to one's latest article.  From a career development perspective, it's best not to be a terrible teacher.  When students howl, at least at any law school that cares about students, a junior professor will have problems -- subject to interventions, micro-management of their syllabi or material selection, etc.  But if one comes out of the gate an exceptional teacher, one gets on a track that may make it harder to pump out articles at the rate of less pedogogically sound counterparts.  Maybe the best thing is to be a good teacher, but not too good.