Teaching land law — An essay

Abstract

In 2011, fellow property teachers Penny Carruthers, Natalie Skead and Kate Galloway conducted a valuable and comprehensive survey of the teaching of the compulsory property law unit in Australian law schools. Their published findings provided rich empirical data on our practices,1 and aimed to ‘stimulate discussion and foster the further exploration of the challenges that confront property law teachers in teaching property law in the twenty-first century’.2 This essay takes up that discussion. First, the essay contains observations made and lessons learned over a twenty year career of teaching property and writing curricula, at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, in compulsory subjects and electives, in a large law faculty, in a research-intensive university. Second, it is an attempt to drill down into a specific property curriculum, teaching methods and assessment, fleshing out detail on issues raised by Carruthers, Skead and Galloway’s research. The essay is intended as a conversation with property teachers of all varieties; those of us who have taught the subject for considerable time, but also younger teachers who, in accordance with time-honoured tradition, may have been press-ganged into teaching property as a condition of their employment. No minor challenge.