Not-so-classic lines from law school classes

One of the recurring posts on my One-L blog was a segment called "Classic Lines from Law School Lectures." I hope to continue this tradition during this year. This first post is unfortunately an un-classic line, and it came from a student. I have been shocked at the lack of enthusiasm and participation in my Administrative Law class. Many of the students are night students, and I understand that they work all day and many of them have children and families, but even among the regular students, everyone seems like they are at law school simply as a means to get a job and that speaking is an obligatory burden equal to paying a toll to get across a bridge. There really few "thinkers" at law school, by which I mean individuals who have a genuine interest in delving into the material to absorb it in an authentic way and processing it through their own mind. So many students just want to have the snippets of knowledge handed to them in a linear package so that they can use rote memorization to prepare for the exam. This is not how I have evolved to understand learning or teaching or living, and thus I was shocked at how a Three-L responded to the Professor's request for suggestions on the best way to move through the material (The profession is the Chief Administrative Law Judge in Seattle. He has a lot of real world experience, but he has not taught in a while and is a bit rusty. He has a lot of enthusiasm though, which I enjoy) The student raised his hand and asked: "I am taking this class mostly because I know that administrative law is tested heavily on the bar, so could you maybe focus the class to cover the topics that are going to be covered by the bar exam." I was glad to see that the professor responded with a look of mild shock and disgust and said something like: "I will teach you administrative law and if you learn it, then you will do fine on the exam." The majority of law school students put the cart before the horse. They want to memorize the answer without building the mechanisms to think through the question.