Yeah, but how long is the tunnel?

There is a phrase in legal jargon, "when justice so requires." Well, I say, that justice requires, despite its impractical nature, despite its challenges and its room for discretion, a new measuring stick.

I write tonight  at 1 am, still reeling on caffeine, from a place of confusion, of anger, of being "fed up" with the institution, of rare and raw vulnerability and of brokenness. Not brokenness in the sense of true brokenness, like heart ache or real suffering, but actual inability-to-function correctly broke-ness. I write to put into cyberspace thoughts and musings that have been brewing under my skin for a long time.

It is May, which for me, means finals. In law school, as so many of you know, finals are 100% of my grade in each class. I have one exam, one shot, one three hour period to show what I have learned. To demonstrate that I deserve an A. To prove myself.

My entire life I grew up with the notion that the first six letters of the alphabet carried a weight. An importance was given to these letters. Even from the smallest of ages when "Excellent" or "Satisfactory" became equated with an A or a B or a C, I learned that these letters were something to work for, to earn, to deserve, to need, to crave. I was imprinted I assume at the first "A" I brought home. I imagine, because I do not remember, that I came home with my own sense of pride because I knew what I had accomplished, and I showed my Mom that "A" and she praised me with a glowing smile. I do not know the percentage of children that never shared this childhood experience, although I would guess it is quite high. And, admittedly, I do not remember my own, because, the first one was not important to me. Literally thousands of these moments were to follow. The point is, those six letters, for the first 22 years of my life, were the most important measuring stick.

I'm not a fool. I know that life is bigger than grades, I lived in Africa for six months for crying out loud. This rambling post is not about ignorance to God's significance in my life or about life's true values. This is about a false sense of measurement that I'm battling to shake off. This is about you telling me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that I just have to jump through this hoop first. This is my way of saying, "How many hoops are there? Just how many hamster wheels do I have to run backwards on?!!"

Nothing about that measuring stick from elementary education really changes when you go to law school. Except for the fact that  now the measuring stick is no longer a stick; it is now a whip. It's literally a curve. There are a certain pre-determined number of As, Bs, Cs, Ds, and Fs. The curve must be met, it must be maintained and there is no deviation. And now, the 200 battling for those five A's are all people who have never seen Bs in their entire life. Now, miraculously, learning is no longer about walking out of the classroom inspired, or empowered, or challenged. It is a concept to be memorized, analyzed and spit out in some formula requiring a heap of luck, a bit of mind-reading, a dash more luck and some extra oomph of magical who-knows-just-what.

It's not that I am unappreciative of the practical considerations for a numerical method of separating the wheat from the chaff, or purely that high on my soap box I think law school as an institution is arcane (which I do think, by the way). It is that I think it's inherently unfair, to send people, who lived their entire life being measured and measuring their own sense of accomplishment on only 1 of the 6 letters, into an environment where it's more of a gambling casino than an institution about demonstrating what you've learned. I think it's inherently unfair to leave HEART and caring, time, effort, blood, sweat and tears out of the equation. These qualities, necessary for true learning, should not be inputted into numbers, but certainly can be valued in the calculation of a grade. I find it nearly impossible for my rational brain to tell my heart that so deeply cares and always has cared that "its only a letter grade; it doesn't matter." It does matter. That's the entire point! It matters to me. Everything, for twenty. two. years. taught me that it matters.

What have I learned this semester? What have I accomplished? What has changed me? What has pushed me toward being a better lawyer? Was it learning the rule of some case scathingly written by Justice Scalia? Was it the 200 notecards I had memorized the day of my Criminal Procedure exam? Was it all the rules I learned that contradict any legal or police television show? No. This semester, I really learned two big things. One, from Donald Miller at the Justice Conference in February when he challenged us that "just because you aren't winning doesn't make you unlovable." I learned I suck at believing that and that it's something I should work on. I've been desperately trying since then, and I've made little progress (refer to the entire blog post above).

The second big thing I learned, is that advocating for someone requires believing them. I represented two clients this semester who were applying for political asylum based on terrible persecution they received in their home countries. I firmly believe that our work on their cases saved their lives. You read that correctly: had we not done what we did for them in their case, I believe with my whole heart, they would have been sent back to their country and been killed. When I first met one of these clients and read her file, I thought she had a big uphill legal battle. I read her life story, I knew the law, and I thought her case would be nearly impossible to win. After two months of working with her, of arguing for her, and listening to her, I couldn't see how we could possibly lose. Being an advocate is being a believer.

Neither of these two things did I learn in a classroom.
And neither of these things will be on my final exam in Evidence.
It doesn't mean they aren't real. But it sure does feel like that when it's not translated, or appreciated, or affirmed by the only measuring stick I am being measured on.

How do you parent your child on the pride of an A, without destroying them when they graduate to a field where they cannot make one? How do you re-program yourself to measure yourself on what you want to actually be measured on- your honesty, humanity, spirituality, light, connectivity, responsiveness to needs, hunger for knowledge, perseverance, integrity and strength? How do you make that new program seep so deeply into your veins that you actually believe it and cancel out the other?

Thank you, with great sincerity, for reading. Please post a comment, thought, or response.