If these blackboards could talk 2: The Fem‐Crit classroom

• Published date: 01 October 2022
• Author: Aníbal Rosario Lebrón
• Date: 01 October 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12676

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

If these blackboards could talk 2: The Fem-Crit

classroom

Aníbal Rosario Lebr

on

Rutgers Law School, Newark, Newark, New

Jersey, USA

Correspondence

Aníbal Rosario Lebr

on, Rutgers Law School,

Newark, 123 Washington Street, Newark,

New Jersey 07102 USA.

Email: anibal.rosario.lebron@law.rutgers.edu;

anibal.rosario.lebron@gmail.com

Abstract

In this article, I explain how I came to redefine my teaching

philosophy as Fem-Crit to ensure that I train students in

gender-conscious lawyering. First, I discuss how even

though Crits' and Feminists' pedagogical approaches focus

on breaking down hierarchies in the law, Crit pedagogies

can remain male-constructed and privileged, especially for

cis-man professors like myself. Recognizing these shortcom-

ings, I highlight the importance of labeling my teaching as

Fem-Crit as a self-accountability measure. Departing from

this understanding, I revisit my conclusion from a previous

article that the law school classroom should be a battlefield

and recognize that a Fem-Crit formulation of the classroom

encompasses more than conflict and it also includes meet-

ing conflict with anti-subordination responses. I follow with

my reflections on the challenges, methods, and experiences

in socializing students to become Fem-Crit lawyers. In that

part, I discuss how each of the tenets that I had previously

identified as core components of a Crit classroom should

look for a Fem-Crit professor. I conclude my reflection by

sharing how Fem-Crit pedagogy has led me to believe that

this didactic practice ultimately entails bringing activism into

the classroom and the classroom into activism.

Aníbal Rosario Lebr

on: Assistant Clinical Professor, Rutgers Law School—Newark. LL.M. in Legal Theory, New York University School of Law (2010); Post-

Graduate Certificate in Linguistics Applied to the Study of Spanish, University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (2008); J.D., University of Puerto Rico

School of Law (2005); B.S., University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (2002).

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which

permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no

modifications or adaptations are made.

© 2022 The Author. Family Court Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association of Family and Conciliation

Courts.

Family Court Rev. 2022;60:793–817. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fcre 793

DOI: 10.1111/fcre.12676

KEYWORDS

family law, fem-Crit pedagogy, gender equality, gender-conscious

lawyering, higher education, law schools, LGBTQ+,Socraticmethod

Key points

•Teaching is a political act.

•To effectively train attorneys in gender-conscious lawyering

law, professors must engage in Fem-Crit pedagogy.

•In a Fem-Crit classroom, confrontation and resistance

must be modeled and met with anti-subordination prac-

tices and anti-hierarchical practices.

•Pedagogical praxes in a Fem-Crit classroom must foster

horizontality, an authentic Socratic method, a critical

analysis of the law, a commitment to diversity, and the

use of non-traditional materials.

•Activism must be at the core of a Fem-Crit pedagogy.

FEM-CRIT LAWYERING

As an aspiring professor, even though I was not pursuing a degree in Education, I enrolled in pedagogy courses

during my undergraduate studies. From that experience, I learned the importance of periodic in-depth reflections

into my teaching praxes. For that reason, I have always sought out both formal and informal conversations with col-

leagues about our teaching philosophies.

In 2015, these conversations culminated in an article interrogating what it means to be a Crit professor

1

and

what kinds of classroom formulations are most effective.

2

Even though I had long identified myself as a Crit profes-

sor, I had not formally reflected on what that meant in a law school setting or whether I was living up to the designa-

tion that I so proudly embraced. Through writing that piece, I not only (re)discovered myself as a Crit professor, but

also sketched out paradigms against which I could assess the effectiveness of my teaching.

In that article, I concluded that Crit professors should think of our classrooms as battlefields, instead of an agora

or a laboratory.

3

This means that confrontation (not in its masculine conception, but rather in its Freirean formula-

tion

4

of the clashing of forces or ideas that liberate and transform us) should be at the center of our pedagogy.

5

In

addition, I identified the following areas as pivotal to the development and implementation of a Crit didactic method-

ology in law school: a horizontal classroom; an authentic Socratic method; a critical analysis of the law; a commit-

ment to diversity; and the adoption of non-traditional materials.

6

1

A Crit pedagogy could be conceptualized as “a platform for unlearning and relearning system biases.”Francisco Valdes & Steven W. Bender, LATCRIT:FROM

CRITICAL LEGAL THEORY TO ACADEMIC ACTIVISM 80 (2021). “[C]ritical pedagogy involves a way of thinking about, negotiating, and transforming the relationship

among classroom teaching, the production of knowledge, the institutional structures of the school, and the social and material relations of the wider

community, society, and nation-state.”Linda Keesing-Styles, The Relationship Between Critical Pedagogy and Assessment in Teacher Education, Radical

Pedagogy Vol. 5, No. 1, (Summer 2003), https://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue5_1/03_keesing-styles.html. Although Paulo Freire seldom used

the term, he is considered the original architect of Crit pedagogy. Id.

2

Aníbal Rosario Lebr

on, If These Blackboards Could Talk: The Crit Classroom,A Battlefield,9CHARLESTONL. REV. 305 (2015) [hereinafter Rosario Lebr

on, The

Crit Classroom,A Battlefield].

3

Id. at 332.

4

Jan Pouwels, We Are in Need of Each Other.Paulo Freire and the Role of Conflicts in Education,7 INT'L J. SOC.PEDAGOGY,no. 1, 2019, at 1, 4.

5

Rosario Lebr

on, The Crit Classroom,A Battlefield,supra note 2, at 332; Yasmin Sokkar Harker, Legal Information for Social Justice: The New ACRL Framework

and Critical Information Literacy,2L

EGAL INFO.REV. 19, 24 (2016).

6

Rosario Lebr

on, The Crit Classroom,A Battlefield,supra note 2, at 320. See also Sheila I. Velez Martinez, Challenges to Justice Education: South–North

Perspective,9C

HARLESTON L. REV. 213, 229 (2015).

794 FAMILY COURT REVIEW