How to Discover Students’ Talents and Turn Them into Teaching

Abstract

Some law students were born to teach. Their professors’ job is to help them to discover their talents and turn them into teaching. This paper offers a description of the Prague Street Law Programme with an emphasis on the way of working with law students, who possess clear talent for teaching. Students enrolling for Street Law clinics are students of law, who have obviously decided to study law rather than pedagogy. However, when being provided with an opportunity to teach, some law students prove to possess clear pedagogical talents, which they themselves might not realise. This article analyses Czech experience regarding running Street Law clinics, whose aim goes beyond traditional aims of Street Law clinics, i.e. beyond putting theory into practice, looking at law through the eyes of the lay people, communicating legal matters to lay people, improving presentation skills and serving the community. In addition to these highly beneficial traditional aims of Street Law clinics, Prague Street Law programme also seeks to create an environment, in which law students might realise their pedagogical talents, equip them with necessary methodology, find enjoyment in teaching and efficiently turn their talents into the teaching of law. The paper focuses in particular on the description of the way Prague Street Law programme is designed to support the described goals and lists a number of concrete teaching methods, which have been employed to stimulate students’ pedagogical development, since these might serve as a source of inspiration for other clinicians.