Who was your best teacher, law or otherwise? What
made that teacher so effective?
For the past four years, we have posed these questions at conferences,
law schools, and to groups of Chilean, Georgian, Ira ni an,
and Turkish law teachers. In response, law teachers have described
their best teachers’ attitudes, expectations, teaching methods, mental
habits, beliefs about students and learning, personal qualities,
teaching emphases, and anything else that made their teachers so
noteworthy. The results have been strikingly similar. Across cultures
and schools, the best teachers distinguish themselves by their
thoughtfulness, caring about their students, high expectations, commitment
to student learning, and ability to engage their students.