Elizabeth Warren's Classroom Strategy
New York magazine|August 5-18, 2019

She has been instructing students since she was 8 years old and is the most professorial presidential candidate in modern history. But does America want to be taught?

Rebecca Traister
Elizabeth Warren's Classroom Strategy
THE STORY OF Elizabeth Warren’s career in education— at least in legal education— begins with one word: assumpsit. It is literally the first word of the first case she had to read for the first class she ever took as a 24-year-old law student at Rutgers University in 1973. She has recalled, in vivid detail, the fear and confusion she’d felt as a young mother, former public-school teacher, and unlikely law student when her first law professor walked into the room and called on a student whose name began with A, asking her, “Ms. Aaronson, what is ‘assumpsit’?” Ms. Aaronson had not known, and neither had the next several students he called on after her. Ms. Warren also had not known what assumpsit meant, despite having done the reading for the day. Since her last name was at the end of the alphabet, Warren was spared public humiliation, but she left her first law-school class badly shaken, with a degree of clarity about how she must move forward: “Read all the words and look up what you don’t know.”

In the following years, Warren became a law-school professor: first teaching night classes at Rutgers and eventually landing at Harvard, where she worked for 16 years before becoming a U.S. senator from Massachusetts in 2013.

In 1999, more than 20 years after Warren attended her first law class at Rutgers, Jay O’Keeffe, who now works as a consumer-protection lawyer in Roanoke, Virginia, attended his first law class at Harvard. It was taught by Warren. “She did not say anything like ‘Hello’ or ‘I’m Liz Warren, and welcome to Contracts,’ ” O’Keeffe recalled. “Instead, she put her books down, looked over her glasses at her seating chart, and said, ‘Mr. Szeliga, what’s ‘assumpsit’?’ ”

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 5-18, 2019-Ausgabe von New York magazine.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

Diese Geschichte stammt aus der August 5-18, 2019-Ausgabe von New York magazine.

Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.

WEITERE ARTIKEL AUS NEW YORK MAGAZINEAlle anzeigen
Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
New York magazine

Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.

SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
September 23 - October 6, 2024
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
New York magazine

The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.

On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
September 23 - October 6, 2024
Can the Media Survive?
New York magazine

Can the Media Survive?

BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
Status Update
New York magazine

Status Update

Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
A Matter of Perspective
New York magazine

A Matter of Perspective

A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.

time-read
3 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
Creator, Destroyer
New York magazine

Creator, Destroyer

A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
In Praise of Bad Readers
New York magazine

In Praise of Bad Readers

In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.

time-read
10+ Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
New York magazine

Trust the Kieran Culkin Process

First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.

time-read
8 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
The Funniest Vampires on TV
New York magazine

The Funniest Vampires on TV

What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.

time-read
5 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024
The Water-Tower Penthouse
New York magazine

The Water-Tower Penthouse

Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.

time-read
2 Minuten  |
October 21 - November 03, 2024