Thanksgiving week

Today (the Wednesday before Thanksgiving) is a law school holiday; thus, classes met only Monday and Tuesday this week.  At the undergraduate level, however, there were no classes the entire week!

Is that a good idea?  On a purely personal level, obviously I would be happier with more days of paid vacation than fewer ones, and so if the law school were to adopt the undergraduate university approach, I should be happier.  And in terms of ABA accredidation, Iowa requires far more minutes of instruction than is necessary, so we could lose two days and still more than meet ABA standards.

Still, considering the issue not from my own perspective, but rather a pedogogical one, it strikes me that taking the entire week of Thanksgiving off is not a good idea.  The way our schedule works out, the week after Thanksgiving is the last week of classes.  The following Monday is a reading day (i.e., study for exams), and finals begin the next day.  Having such a long interruption before the last week of class may be more disruptive than could be justified.

On the other hand, I suppose a week off so close to finals would offer the students (especially 1Ls) the opportunity to work on their outlines.  (A countervailing point is that if we're going to include an off week during the semester, 2Ls and 3Ls would find it more useful if that week were in mid- Sept. to mid-Oct., so as to be able to interview with out-of-state firms.)

I'd be curious to see what readers -- especially ones connected with Iowa -- think about Thanksgiving week.

Comments

[Federalist No. 84]

We finished classes on Wednesday. Our first finals start on Monday, Nov. 29th.

Most professors finished up on Monday, and I think that's superior. Class is fun, it's a great way to prepare for answering questions on the spot, but let's face it: It's also a lot of gum clapping that has little to do with applying black letter law to a set of facts.

I want as much time as possible to do practice final exams. Attending class is a waste of valuable study time. Indeed, I don't pay attention the last week since I'm too busy practicing past exams to talk about material that won't appear on the exam.

Thus, I think that a full week off before final exams is the best approach.

[Sarah]

Interesting to me that this has come up at this time, because our charter high schools are just now considering shifting their semester start/end dates to be more pedagogically compatible with teaching schedules, study times and exams, while taking into account the three days off for Thanksgiving and the 9th of September, which is a moveable holiday for Admission Day (when California was admitted to the Union).

Many schools have already come to the realization that the "multi-track" calendar, originally adoped to adapt schools to accommodate more students, is academically sound, as well, since students on those calendars have short or medium breaks between semesters, but no longer have the mid-June to mid-September hiatus which seemed to suck all the hard work of the previous year into a void, leaving only the nerds (like me) who actually liked to read ready to start the new academic year.

As for classes in general--and review classes in specific--being a waste of time, some people profit from learning in a group setting, some people need to go into a private space to marinate. Chacun a son gout.