No more pencils, no more books?

When I was in school, back in the Cretaceous Period, some students were already attending virtually. Oh, they were in their seats, but their minds were elsewhere or nowhere. In college I was among them during the early morning classes. I was working in the dorms as a night watchman, doing the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. My bleary-eyed responses to the professor’s questions went something like this:

Professor: Mr. Castoria, what do you consider to be an example of sound public administration?

Me: Mumfulgug.

I passed the course anyway, out of pity, I assume.

Today’s students face different challenges. In my class these are primarily caused by their professor’s technological ineptitude. The students are, of course, proficient in every application used in modern classrooms, having majored in Minecraft during college, with a minor in Madden NFL. 

I, however, am in my third semester of failing to learn how to use Canvas, a computer program common in academia that posts assignments, grades and almost anything else about the class. If the class readings stayed the same, semester to semester, this would be ideal. They do not.

There is no course book in my “Overcoming Civil Litigation Obstacles” class. The reading assignments are all online and free and are of actual U.S. Supreme Court cases from the 2021-2022 term, and trial court cases pending in the San Francisco Superior Court. I also post some public-domain materials via emails. It saves the students money. Instead of looking back in time to cases decided in 1897, they read cases in which the proverbial ink is still wet.

But there’s a catch: All those links must be updated. Though I’m getting the hang of teaching, I am still terrible at keyboarding. Class sessions are thus peppered with students’ keen legal insights, usually, “That link is broken.” Perhaps the problem is that a “missing link” is doing the typing.

The unnamed “professor” on Gilligan’s Island had it easy. He could make a linear accelerator out of coconut shells and vines. I guess he must have been tenured.

As I’m a professor, I start the first class day each semester by saying what I “profess.” Here it is: Litigation is our national pastime. In a given year we spend four times as much on litigation (not including court expenses or money verdicts) as we do on Major League Baseball, the NFL and the NBA. Combined.

At its worst, it’s the least efficient method ever devised to move money from Point A to Point B. At its best, it’s individual participation in the ongoing American Revolution.

Louie@coastsidenewsgroup.com still has a lot to learn.