ABSTRACT
I’ll never forget this exchange. As I remember it, a determined yet exasperated hand flew up into the air. This student was outstanding. Consistently prepared, willing to ask hard questions, committed to the learning process. On this particular day, this student was frustrated. Validly so. We’d been moving through a great deal of classroom material and some larger themes were beginning to evolve. Patterns were appearing—sociopolitical and judicial (our classroom material relied heavily on Supreme Court cases). As we got deeper into the course, students were moving from one level of awareness to another. They were growing, thinking independently. They began sharing personal experiences connected with the material. My classes inevitably involve a degree of sitting with the gray (that’s the nature of constitutional law) and leaving room for students to think their own thoughts.
