Looking for Cute Tarot Deck To Use for Calling Randomly on Students:
I'd like to pass a deck around to my Criminal Law students so they can write their names on each card, and so I can then call on them fairly randomly. Since the class is 80 students, I take it a Tarot deck plus one or two other cards will do the trick.
Can anyone recommend any Tarot decks I can order online that are either generally visually appealing, or, better yet, have a legal motif or a crime motif (though not too gory)? They would also need to have some white (or pale) space in which each student's name can be written. Thanks!
Related Posts (on one page):
- Tarot Deck To Use (Together with an Ordinary Deck) for Calling Randomly on Students:
- Looking for Cute Tarot Deck To Use for Calling Randomly on Students:
Especially the students who get "Death" and "The Hanged Man."
http://www.customplayingcards.com/
Hey Eugene.
I suspect a variety of folks would find the Tarot cards to be unsavory. I'm not saying you should be banned from using the cards or anything that strong; people need to be a bit thick-skinned. But I would say that it would be in poor taste given the sensibilities of many religious (and perhaps areligious) people.
Why associate people with something they would not want to be associated with?
Pragmatically, you'll have a bigger problem in that if you do use the cards, all the guys would want to be "Death", just like everyone wants to be Mr. Black or Mr. Blue and no one wants to be Mr. Pink.
Peace
Unfortunately, tarot themes generally don't fall into the "legal or crime" motif so much as the "animals, spirits, witches, dragons, etc." motif or the "gimmicks like Rock &Roll Tarot" or "Silicon Valley Tarot" motif. There's also some decks devoted to specific old artists. Albrecht Durer, Leonardo da Vinci, William Blake, and Hieronymous Bosch come to mind as examples, but I'm not aware of any of them having particular links to the field of law.
So, my advice is if you really want to go with the tarot idea, your best bet's just to Google "tarot decks", take one of the first links to an online tarot deck store, and pick the one with the art you like the best.
"I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."
On the other hand, you're the one with tenure, so it's your call.
MichaelG
And great point about Mr. Black.
http://www.warehouse23.com/item.html?id=SJG1324
"The 70 cards include both major arcana (cards like Flame War, Spam, The Hacker, and Double Latte) and minor arcana (in four suits: Cubicles, Hosts, Disks, and Networks!)."
As a senior professor, I must agree with Ben and what Ravonna had written earlier.
If this is a public university, you must provide an easy opt-out for those with religious preferences. I suspect that many of your more religious students are not ignorant of Tarot Cards, as some of your younger commenters seem to believe.
I also wonder what happened to spending time in class teaching the law, and letting the students find their own fun on their own time. The deck of cards Joshua Macy has linked too clearly has no place in a public classroom.
Why not stick with plain index cards and let your students impress you with their hard work and knowledge, not flatter how "cool" you are for presenting sexy or gory namecards for them in a public school with religious students present?
This one should go in the "death of common sense in the academy" files. Is there any oversight of what you newer professors are up to with your students? Perhaps there should be if this is the level of judgment on display.
I think some students will be offended by others playing with Tarot cards in the classroom REGARDLESS if their is an opt out. It's not hypersensitivity, it's religious choice and it's not a game that belongs in a public classroom.
I hope some of your future students are reading this and will take action on this silliness starting on day one. Religious students should be able to attend their public state schools without compromising their religious principles.
Don't be stubborn on this one -- go with colored index cards if you find white ones, and just teaching black letter law to be so troublesome. Perhaps you could get up a group of friends outside the classroom and Tarot away to your heart's content. These kinds of nonsence don't belong in the public classroom, not matter what your personal preferences are.
Baseball tarot / Mark Lerner, ISBN 0761103473
Personally, I use www.random.org
to call on students.
No tarot there.
I don't want my professor to be "cool" or "awesome".
I want him to respect everyone in the class and teach me law. Can't he buy the Tarot cards on his own dime, and find his own group of 20-somethings to play with?
I suspect when you put this up, you had no awareness of legitimate religious objections. Don't bring an ouiji board in the public classroom either, in case you don't understand those cultural distinctions either.
For a smart man, sometimes you show yourself thinking at about a 13-year-old's level. Which I suspect is why this is viewed as so "awesome" by your secular students.
On the other hand, I do want to give students an easy opt-out when it doesn't affect what others are doing, and especially when it is in some measure tied to themselves or their names. The ordinary card deck, which as I said I'll offer as an option, should take care of that.
Tarot cards were originally just **playing cards** for card games. It wasn't until much later that they were turned in to "divination tools." They are no more inherently mystical than the standard 52 card deck that is more commonly used.
Should we avoid tea just because some people use tea leaves for divination.
US Games publishes a pretty deck called the "Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg", with illustrations drawn from Russian folk tales. (It also happens to be free of the occasional breast many decks display, which on second thought is one reason some might object to Tarot but not dice.) Pictures at:
http://www.tarot.com/tarot/decks/index.php?deckID=25
http://www.usgamesinc.com/product.php?productid=595
Since you asked, I don't think rolling dice or reading tea leaves has any place in the public classroom either.
Why does he have to provide "fun" and "silliness"? Is it for him, or for the more immature students with no social lives outside class?
Call them alphabetically, or shuffle up their names and call them randomly. Spending this much effort on "fun" instead of black-letter law seems silly and more for the young professor's benefit.
Stay away from the Tarot Cards, even with an opt out, if you truly respect the religion of all your students, and want to rank them on merit.
If this were my child in your classroom where others were using Tarot Cards, I would not want my uncomfortableness at his attending that class to affect his grade. May students choose another class if they object to these goings-on in the classroom?
I do suspect it won't be so neutral as to call the name and move on. There will be superstitious silliness noted -- comments, guffaws, etc. Why not choose a better tailored option that isn't so offensive to your religious students?
I don't understand why you are so fixated on the Tarot deck, unless your precisely want to add these fantasy elements into the law classroom.
Is the professor reading horoscopes aloud today in the classroom? "I sincerely hope we have not reached tht age."
Please consider your religious students and pick a less offensive method. What is fun for some, really is religiously objectionable for others and they should not have to face this dilemma entering the classroom everyday.
I don't know if the card assignments would be more or less controversial than tarot cards.
Why not mount this wheel instead? Surely the students will have even more fun spinning it.
As to silliness, different people have different senses of humor, and different tolerance for frivolousness in class (or elsewhere). I think some degree of such frivolousness is helpful; I realize others disagree; that's why classes often differ from each other a good deal. Look, I've often ask a trivia question (often related to geography, history, or language) once a week in my classes. I thought it broke up what might otherwise be a too intensely law-focused mood; my sense is that many students liked it and nearly all the rest were indifferent, but I suppose some might have found it to be silly. That's the way things are.
Others: Thanks very much for the pointers to nice-looking decks; I'd love to have more!
But you are not deliberately introducing material into the classroom to offend: it is a legitimate part of the learning experience.
Here, there are so many religiously neutral ways to call on students using other cards than Tarot cards and what traditionally has been associated with them.
Why would you not choose, since this is clearly optional, to provide neutral nametages?
Is it a class where you intend to provoke religious offense in making captive students sit for this optional educational material?
This just seems such a common-sense conflict that could easily be avoided in respecting the secular and religious students. I suspect there will be many who WILL keep quiet and play along, but should they have to compromise their religious principles to attend a public school?
I see a big distinction between introducing these cards and talking about the facts of a case, or an issue. I also thought at the time that you especially enjoyed provocation on the cartoons issue; is that the case here? You're trying to prepare students to abandon their religious "sensititivies" for the practice of law?
Second, how much time has Eugene spent on this? 20 minutes? If you've ever been in a class taught by Eugene, I doubt you'd worry that he wasn't adequately prepared, or was skimping on substantive preparation in lieu of "silliness".
And lastly, while I don't think professors have read horoscopes in class while I was there, I would wonder at people that this offended if they did. And if the professor called on people based on their astrological signs, I'd also wonder at the people this offended.
Will students be penalized in any way for requesting removal from the Tarot Card classroom?
You really seem bound and determined on this issue, and I'm wondering why the Tarot Cards are so important to you?
You really are clueless as to the religious offense some take at Tarot Cards. I suspect there are more students who will be offended than you know.
This should be submitted to the "Crazy Nonsense in the Classroom" files.
Arvin, you are missing the point.
If a student has to attend a class, where every day he is confronted with Tarot Cards, which is not kosher to his religion, will his grade be affected?
If you had a professor in a public setting bring in religious prayer cards of the saints and Popes, and every day played the game of calling out a saint for those who choose to participate, would you think this a reasonable use of your classroom time?
If other students objected to sitting in a classroom where professor chose this method solely to satisfy his personal preferences, could you understand their questioning why he didn't find a more respectful way?
Should the religious law professors resort to bullying non-Christian students in this way, combining Fantasy elements with the subject they are teaching?
I say no, because I am more than certain some students would object to the use of prayers cards. Ditto with the Tarot.
(2) Of course no-one will be penalized for signing one of the playing cards I distribute rather than one of the Tarot cards.
As it happens, I've sometimes dressed up for class on Halloween, generally not as a witch or goblin or the like. Should I not do that on the grounds that someone might see that as going along with "sin or Satan"? Should I avoid hypos based on Harry Potter (I actually prefer other characters, but say that I was a Potter buff, as I imagine some of my students are) because they somehow bring up or endorse witchcraft?
One cannot possibly trust in your NOT penalizing a student for picking the wrong card, seeing that you freely censor folks on this blog who merely use combinations of words from Webster's dictionary that you don't like.
Furthermore, you should know that Fundamentalist Christians consider using a regular deck sinful. It is not that long ago that students could be expelled from Wheaton College (IL) for dancing, going to movies and playing with those cards.
You're not legally required, but it is a question of respect for all of your students, the religious ones included.
Did you read the prayer card hypothetical I offered above? I would no more ask my non-Christian students to sit by while we called out those cards then I would ask yours to accept the use of Tarot.
Will there be an non-punitive option for students who hold strong religious beliefs to confronting these materials on a daily basis to move to a more religiously neutral classroom?
Baseball cards have no religious connotation to them and can be fun for the group.
Why not give a little respect here to those who might mentally "drop out" of your class and receive a poorer grade due to religous conflicts?
Why would you want to start out advantaging some students (with no religious objections) over others? Next year, will you be using the prayer cards of the saints as offset, instead of using religiously neutral cards every year?
Would you object if Christian professors had a little less respect for all of their students too, and start "pushing back" in subtle ways?
Tarot Cards and prayer cards have no place in the public classroom as an optional activity. California craziness!
As it happens, I've sometimes dressed up for class on Halloween, generally not as a witch or goblin or the like.
Is that an everyday activity linking the students to your game which could potentially affect their grade, or are students perfectly free to just tune out and ignore your costume for that one-time event, even choosing to stay at home that one day if it offends the practice offends their religious sensibilities?
The prayer card hypothetical, daily calling out Christian icons, is much more on point.
Is that an everyday activity linking the students to your game which could potentially affect their grade, or are students perfectly free to just tune out and ignore your costume for that one-time event, even choosing to stay at home that one day if it offends the practice offends their religious sensibilities?
The prayer card hypothetical, daily calling out Christian icons, is much more on point.
He's constantly doing things like that. Why, I myself have been censored here (by the United States Department of Volokh, so you know it's real censorship) merely for using the phrase "hyperbole carousel marmoset." And each of those words is in Webster's! Quel outrage!
In the extraordinarily unlikely event that someone objected in class to other students' voluntary use of these cards, it would be a fine moment to remind the students of the etiquette for future professionals in a pluralistic society. A digression from the class's subject matter, I suppose, but worth it.
Come to think of it, although I still think it's unlikely that an actual student would object, there was a woman in my contracts class who didn't like the professor's use of the word "gypped." (That was Professor Barnett, as it happens.) Perhaps law students need more exposure to the rough and tumble world of free speech.
And, yes, I'm aware that some people advocate a general norm of not saying or doing anything that would offend anyone's religious (or other) standards of offendedness. For reasons I've mentioned before, I don't endorse such a norm.
Finally, I'll mention again that anyone who wants to be on the 4 of Spades instead of the 6 of Cups is free not to be linked to the Tarot. In fact, even if everyone wanted one of the Tarot cards, some students would have to have the normal cards because I have more students than there are Tarot cards.
Admittedly, one probably doesn't have many of these students in his law classes. They're probably more common in public universities in the south.
I just think it's probably more controversy than it is worth for a simple memory trick.
One possible motif:
Magic: The Gathering Card Generator
Or, for a simpler card:
Motivator/Demotivator Generator
A) Why would it affect his grade any more than if he's confronted every day with a viewpoint he didn't like? My Torts class was taught by a socialist. I argued with him every day, and thought many of his ideas were kooky. I doubt it affected my grade any. My grade was due to how well I did on the final. And hell, that his political views were different from mine is MUCH more likely to affect my grade than if he'd called on me because I was a Serpent in the Chinese Zodiac.
B) If it WOULD affect him, perhaps he should get used to it. We don't always get to pick our clients.
In my Civ Pro class, on the first day, we filled out an index card with information about who we were, what our home state was, and something interesting about ourselves. For all the rest of the days, the professor used those cards to call on us. If a defendant was from North Carolina, he'd call on a student from NC. If it was a website question, he'd call on a student with a tech background. Etc.
I don't see how that method is any better or worse than saying, Today is Saint _____'s day. So I'll call on _____ today. Arguably it might be better for me, because there's no Saint Arvin.
No. Or rather, I could understand it, but would think it misguided, like the protests to Halloween or Harry Potter as Eugene mentioned.
In the harmless manner that Eugene is using? Sure, if they want. Assign each of us a psalm number, or something (though, as noted before, maybe we'd all want to be Psalm 23). As long as it doesn't take up much time (and I can't imagine what Eugene is doing will take more than a minute), and people can opt out, what's the harm? That I'm offended by even SEEING Christian symbolism? As long as my grade is not affected by the professor, and I feel like I can speak to the professor about the law if I have questions, I don't see a problem.
Sure. But these students won't be forced to use prayer / tarot cards. You're asking for the presence of prayer / tarot cards to be removed because even SEEING them will be offensive to some. That's what I'd say goes too far.
On the other hand, if you wanted to use the cards for a single day in your First Amendment class to raise an interesting hypothetical. . . .
I don't believe in demons or evil spirits or the dark arts. (If I was using the Tarot cards as a religious exercise in class, there might be reason to object to that, but of course I'm not.) I don't believe that dressing as a witch for Halloween is demonic, I don't believe that using Harry Potter hypos is demonic, and I don't believe that using Tarot cards as a randomizing mechanism is demonic. I see no reason why I should be under any obligation to accede to others' beliefs about what is demonic or otherwise spiritually improper.
I'm happy enough to keep their names out of any connection with the Tarot cards, because that's an accommodation that doesn't affect what I may do. But, to use a perhaps inapt phrase here, I'll be damned if I feel obligated to govern my actions by others' view of black magic or spiritual maleficence or for that matter blasphemy.
Mr. Murphy, can you explain your position in more detail? First, are you using "religious" as a synonym of "pious?" Or are you (as it appears) referring to adherents of a particular religion? If so, which religion? And if by "religious" you specifically mean "Christian," which branch or sect of Christianity do you mean? Finally, once those preliminaries are taken care of, can you explain why your hypothetical "religious" student -- however you have defined him or her -- would object to, or even be made uncomfortable by, a deck of Tarot cards?
Thank you.
/sarcasm
This exercise will take no more time than having students write their names on index cards. And, for Pete's sake, Prof. Volokh won't be using the classic Celtic cross and reading someone's fortune every morning.
Perhaps I simply do not understand students who are so insecure in their religion that they cannot even be in the presence of Tarot cards without taking offence. I am sufficiently secure in my religion (i.e. atheism) that the sight of people praying does not offend me; nor am I upset when someone points out that I'm named for a saint.
There is a fundamental difference between the presence of tarot cards (and, at that, a much mocking presence) and their use.
If I remember correctly from my days at UCLA Law, Crim Law is a 1L class assigned by section. Students don't chose the class, and it would be difficult to opt out without requesting a section change and all the embarassment of explaining why.
I don't understand why you would continue this not to teach a lesson but to have fun. It isn't in the same league as asking a trivia question or wearing a Halloween costume. It's willfully offending your religious students in your first act as their law professor and then continuing to mock their beliefs throughout every class that they are required to attend.
For many fundamentalist Christians participating in this class activity would be sinful regardless of the option of putting their name on a regular deck of cards. As one of the posters noted above, some Christian denominations look down on playing cards because of their derrivation from the tarot cards.
It may seem silly to you but then many people felt that those who objected to opening every public school class day with a Christian prayer was silly. Sensitivity can be taken too far but this isn't one of those instances. Please reconsider.
Christine
Good grief. You really want law class to be boring. Prof. Volokh sounds like the kind of teacher who tries to make the learning experience engaging--the kind of teacher who inspires people.
You, Thomas R. Murphy, wish to confine teaching to a state of bland, inoffensiveness guaranteed to make learning tedious.
It is not the duty of a professor to cave in to every religious or irrational prejudice that a student may theoretically have. Should he cast women out because an Orthodox Jew might be in class? Should he skip the number 13 in citations and paginated tests? Should he refrain from wearing wool and linen together? Should he avoid drinking caffeinated beverages in class lest he offend Mormons? There is no limit to this line of thinking.
Your arguments are often not even rational. You object to random selection by dice and offer that he should "shuffle up their names and call them randomly." This would be different how?
While I would agree that Prof. Volokh should refrain from going out of his way to offend people, I do not agree that ordinary objects and secular practices should be shunned from the classroom because of the possible religious orthodoxy of a theoretical student. It is literally not possible to tailor one's actions to be inoffensive to all religions simultaneously.
I wouldn't be offended by tarot cards, either, though I have to admit it would probably dredge up a spooky feeling (which the Hello Kitty cards would probably be a fine antidote for).
For all the stereotypes, though, Mormons tend to be less prone to see demonic influence in places like Harry Potter or what have you. It's possible that people from more charismatic Christian groups might feel actually threatened by something like a Tarot card - as if there's actually a spiritual influence associated with it. I'm not sure that it's insecurity about one's religion, per se, as much as it is a different world view regarding the reality of physical manifestations of diabolical power and the like.
Professor Volokh's idea, actually, has inspired me to try something similar for my classes. I might go with something like this.
Heaven forbid he bring in a few boxes of Starbucks and ham-and-cheese omelets to start off a Monday morning class.....
Yes Professor, you have the right to be offensive in your own class.
Now that you have been put on notice that using a Tarot deck would make a goodly number of mostly-in-the-modern-world folks uncomfortable in either a "my religion says not to contact spirits" way, or a "there are spirits and messing with this kind of stuff can cause them to interact with this world, which might be a bad thing", or a "my Newage beliefs consider these religious-like objects and he's disrespecting them" way, if you persist in exercising your right to be offensive you will be being intentionally offensive, which is the mark of a jerk.
What if a student objects because they consider tarot cards to be a sacred instrument of their religion? Most serious diviners treat their decks with great reverence.
Alternatively, how would you feel about using a collection of Orthodox icons? Each student could be a different saint. I'm sure you could find at least 80. That would be fun too.
Suppose you gave each student a choice of being either a tarot card or a saint. Would this increase or decrease the overall controversy?
I wonder how quickly you'll get invited back to Marquette University with a "to hell with them" attitude.
There are plenty of people here who object, and it seems you could find a less religiously offensive way.
It sounds like you are digging your heels in now, just to be stubborn and deliberately offend those who don't want to hear giggles and comments about "The Death Card" and all these others:
The Fool, The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgment, and The World.
Why bring this into the law school classroom, even if it's not witchcraft to you?
You sound like you deliberately want to offend non-secular students.
Go with baseball cards, or something less controversial. You'll keep your fun, students will have your respect, and it will be a fair and neutral environment regardless of religious preferences?
And you will definitely have shown a greater respect toward those student and faculty you spoke with at Marquette. Please reconsider, even if you reject the "witchcraft superstition" angle for yourself.
The limit is whether there are real people -- whether there are likely to be real people in that classroom -- for whom this would, as kamatoa said, probably dredge up a spooky feeling.
The "no good purpose" concept in harassment, mentioned earlier this week, is generally poor, but there isn't much purpose in using a Tarot deck as opposed to some other deck or some other randomizer.
I wouldn't be comfortable with it.
I also wouldn't be comfortable with the Professor taking a US flag and tearing it into enough pieces for the class and writing student names on the pieces.
Murphy's analogy of a professor in a public setting bring in religious prayer cards of the saints and Popes is very apt. Those who think they're actually holy would be uncomfortable from the casual use; those who don't like the religions of others disrespected would cringe; those who want to avoid objects that others use in worship forbidden to them would also be offended.
This is not a "it could lead to dancing" joke, this is actual people, and enough that some would be in that class, who would be made uncomfortable for no good reason. (In the course of the thread, the Professor's position seems to have shifted from "this would be a nifty idea" to "I have the right to do this and folks are trying to limit that right, so I will dig in.")
If they want to believe in that, that's fine. But why should the rest of us, in the 21st century, accommodate ourselves to their beliefs, not even when we're talking about them, but whenever we're talking in their presence?
And Christine, sounds like you'd even suggest that I not use playing cards. Isn't this a pretty solid indication of where this thing is headed -- no playing cards, no Halloween costumes, no Harry Potter references, no rules of thumb, no picnics, nothing that anyone somehow for any reason might conclude is somehow offensive to him?
And isn't this the kind of slippery slope argument you usually reject?
As a Marquette Law School graduate (1987), I certainly hope the administration, faculty and students aren't as blinkered and as hyper-sensitive as you make them out to be. If they are, I consider my yearly donations to have been wasted.
More power to you, Professor Volokh. A clever idea.
I think many of you are ignorant of religions, or religions other than your own.
Tarot cards are not considered a "secular practice" to the majority of religious; whether students at that age are strong enough in their religious committments to tell a strong-willed professor that they are uncomfortable with that Tarot Cards daily in their classroom is not a position any young law student should be put in.
It's not oversensitivity, it's a clear lack of respect for other religious traditions in a public school.
Those of you comparing this to a dress-up day on Halloween, or the presence of cola cans and coffee in the classroom are really stretching basic religious tenets. It's not "harmless fun" to everyone, and asking them to ignore these activities every day they step into the classroom shows just a basic lack of respect.
What's next?
An ouiji board to help you decide whose raised hand should be called on first?
Prayer beads to help you keep track of who has participated in the discussion and who has not?
Tarot cards fall into those categories more than somebody else drinking a can of cola, because everyone who wants to learn must listen and be drawn into the discussion. And we know there will be joking and discussion, because so many are already anticipating the "fun" this will introduce to the classroom.
Perhaps Prof. Murphy is opposing the use of the Tarot Cards to try to teach the lesson that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. If school prayer is impermissible for fear of government endorsing a religion, then so too is even the light-hearted use of another "religious" symbol, the Tarot Cards. If so, I wish he'd be more upfront about it. Me, I think that just because the Court ruled the wrong way on one of them is no good reason for adopting the easily-offended tactics of our opponents.
Harry Potter is fiction. Halloween is an opportunity to dress up and have fun, not a tool of Satan to turn 10 year olds into devil worshippers. Tarot cards used to randomly pick students to call on are not talismans of evil, just pieces of paper with funny pictures on them.
I'd say getting huffy over a deck of cards is the sign of a jerk--but I'm open to more arguments to the contrary.
I'd like to think that we'd gotten past the age of witchcraft--you know, left it behind in the 1600's and before...
What's next, we have to respect the belief that a student failed a test because another student put a hex on them? Will we need to burn witches at schools of higher education to truly respect religion?
Really? I don't believe in organized sports and I find the salaries offensive...
Mmmm...fair, bland, neutral, grey. Sounds like scintillating education. I'm sure the kids will just soak that up.
I'm surprised that some of you will even concede that Prof. Volokh be allowed to use books since we all know that all books, except for the Bible, are sinful.
It is really sad that we are supposed to "respect" people who are afraid of witchcraft in the 21'st century. This country is sliding backwards in a big way. We shouldn't condone that de-evolution, especially not in higher education.
You know, I'm guessing that they won't really care if he uses a Tarot deck as a fun way of asking legal questions. They are Jesuits, after all, and they respect learning and learned professors. I suspect they aren't afraid of witches.
Truly, I'm not asking to be a wise-ass, I'm very curious to know what the precise religious objection to them is.
Also, did you consider Pokemon cards? I suspect that the current crop of students would be of an age to have played with those as children.
Every day that I went into the cafeteria at UCLA, they were serving bacon-cheeseburgers. Non-kosher (by definition) bacon-cheeseburgers. Is this disrespectful to orthodox Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Hare Krishnas, and (I think) Bahais? If so, should the cafeteria stop serving this sort of food?
After all, this is more than an issue of "harmless fun". For some, it is slaughtering and eating animals felt to be sacred and holy. Is it "respectful" to tell these people to just not eat the bacon-cheeseburgers, or to not look at them?
Or is it because those guys are wrong, and the people who feel "icky" about tarot cards are right?
Good grief. You really want law class to be boring. Prof. Volokh sounds like the kind of teacher who tries to make the learning experience engaging--the kind of teacher who inspires people.
Showing "Deep Throat" would be interesting (and educational -- having seen it I don't get what's the big deal) but it wouldn't be appropriate. Not merely discussing it, but showing the entire movie.
Law is already interesting. A little levity injected into a lot of hard work can help. This particular suggestion backfires.
It is not the duty of a professor to cave in to every religious or irrational prejudice that a student may theoretically have.
It's the duty of a polite person not to needlessly offend or make uncomfortable.
We readers and commenters tend to be a libertarian and easy-going bunch. The level of response should indicate that this action would touch a nerve in a real way.
And the proper response is a simple "Oh, I didn't realize so many felt so strongly. I'll try something else."
The number 13, ham sandwiches, caffeine, alcohol, dancing, Halloween, dice, playing cards, and tea leaves all have very clear secular meanings. Those who object to them usually understand that to many people these objects have much less significance.
Notwithstanding their origin or derivations that have been made after them, Tarot cards are not in the same category of mostly secular to most people most of the time.
Here we have Volokh and other commentators wondering how folks can believe in ghosts and goblins in the 21st Century and the rest truly worrying about not offending the Holy Spirit. This sounds like Iraq.
I imagine a better world, with government removed from the business of education, where enterprising and inspiring teachers like Volokh could flourish. In such a world, you wouldn't have to pay taxes to support profs who insulted your religion or who put you in danger of going to hell and, in return, great professors could throw all the religionists right out of their classes for no reason whatsoever, if that's what their tuition contract allows.
I think that you have just pointed out that some people are expected to suck it up, even by you, but you think fear of a Tarot deck is more important than offending a Kosher Jew, a drug-free Mormon or an anti-gambling Evangelical.
I fail to see the clear contour here--not that I couldn't try and rationalize one--but I just don't see a natural or consistent boundary in what supervisions we can ignore vs. the ones we must bow to because of someone else's paranormal beliefs.
To me, that is an argument from ignorance, that people don't know that Tarot cards started out as just another kind of playing cards. You could argue that it is an argument from belief, but just how many irrational beliefs am I required to kowtow too to be "respectful?" I know you say Tarot cards are in a different category from fear of the number 13 but you haven't offered a reasonable test for separating the superstitions we must tip toe around and those we can ignore.
Objections to salacious sexual material are not necessarily religious and thus the objections to Tarot cards have no direct analog in such a comparison.
Nothing is inherently interesting and just about anything can be made dull.
While you may be able to enjoy all law lectures, you ability is not shared by all. Your implication that law lectures are inherently interesting to all people is patently false. Good professors make the law relevant and engaging, other professors, well, don't.
If there are objections from your students, maybe each student could pick out a postcard. After a few semesters you could have a great collection.
This world already exists. Although Prof. Volokh teaches at a state school, many the best schools are private. However, that doesn't relieve them from the pressures of religious zealotry.
If we were to eliminate state schools today, this instant, the proportion of religious colleges and university would change dramatically towards religious ones. There is no evidence that eliminating state schools would lead to a utopia of secular education.
I think most fundamentalist Christians enrolled in a public university would have a tolerance for playing cards because they know that most people have no understanding where they came from and that the public sees them as a game. I think that there's also the same tolerance for Halloween--a one day event to dress up and act silly. But Tarot cards are regarded as religious symbols much in the same way that Catholic prayer cards or Greek Icons are seen. The symbols on the cards have meaning to people beyond being a silly picture.
Also its not about allowing a religious minority imposing their views on your classroom, but about you establishing a climate of respect for all your students. What would you think of a professor who assigned a short paper to be due on Rosh Hashanah? Certainly a student could turn the paper in early and thus opt out, but what does that choice say about the professor's feelings about his/her students? Do you think a Jewish student would feel comfortable in that Professor's classroom if he refused to change the date even after she pointed out that it was a religious holiday?
Your idea wasn't offensive at first; it was your choice to say I don't care if I offend my students because their belief is silly that really struck me. A substantial part of the American population equates Tarot with fortune telling. Some believe that participation in such activities is sinful, and you're being intentionally insensitive and disrespectful to their legitimate belief.
BTW, you might be wrong in presuming that students would select the tarot card before the playing card. Many cards have negative connotations while some playing cards can be fun such as the joker or queen of hearts. Unless you distribute significantly more cards than are necessary to cover all the students, you might end up with a fundamentalist forced to put his name on a tarot card. Just a thought if you insist on using this in your crim law class.
Finally, if you wanted to do this in an elective class, I would not object as strenuously. A student could surmise on the first day of Con Law II that you're not a good match for her as a teacher and enroll in a different section quite easily.
Homie Cards.
Our teacher had stumbled upon a stack of "YO! MTV Raps!" trading cards from the early 1990s (this was in 1999), featuring such fine musical talents as Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. Even more popular, though, were the obviously flash-in-the-pan ones. My personal favorite, besides the coveted Vanilla Ice, was a group called "Young Black Teenagers," none of whom were young or appeared African-American.
1) Because you teach in a public university.
2) Because you will have students who truly believe that playing with Tarot Cards in the classroom on a daily basis offends their religious principles.
3) Because students paying tuitition in a public university should not be disrespected deliberately in the name of fun, when there are so many non-offensive alternatives to labeling and calling on the class.
4) Because if your students perceive a choice between following their religious mandates, and receiving a solid education at a public law school, some may tend to drop out.
5) Because if #4 above happens, based on something that could easily be avoided to demonstrate a mutual respect between professor and student, you have failed at least a number of your students.
6) Because your choice of cards favors secular and non-committed who would like to participate in these activities, over those who would wish only to study law.
This is not difficult case law being confronted. This is not the reality of a former time, where disrespect to others was enshrined in the Constitution, but is necessary to struggle with to practice law.
This is an optional daily activity that you are forcing upon anyone who remains in that classroom.
Your further comments here show disrespect to those who hold differing religious beliefs than you, and perhaps a different intensity of these beliefs. Ridiculing your students is not the best way to reach them, which is necessary to teach them.
Someone above suggested that some students will be more in tune to the class because of the introduction of fantasy cards, but this will be offset by those who truly object and there will be at least a handful of them.
Why not avoid the slippery slope, and avoid bringing fantasy games and Tarot Cards into a criminal law class? The casebook material will provide plenty of opportunity for fun, and for struggling with controversial issues.
With all due respect, how do you get "so many" from this thread? That the people who would be offended by it are quite vocal, yes, but this thread hardly provides a quantitative measure of how many will be offended... particularly how many students at Eugene's university.
http://tinyurl.com/27bd8t
not going to offend anybody, but still really cool and not boring old index cards or baseball cards...
http://tinyurl.com/27bd8t
not going to offend anybody, but still really cool and not boring old index cards or baseball cards...
W.W.J.R.D.?
(What Would John Roberts Do?????)
Ironically, Christine, it is the Christians who have no idea where Tarot cards come from. The are card for playing card games in medieval times. It isn't until at least the 18th century that there is any evidence of being used for fortune telling, and even that didn't become entrenched until Aleister Crowley's occult movement that Tarot card became so associated with the occult.
So, Christine, if, as I have reported, the origin of Tarot cards is entirely innocent will you set aside your objections to them? Or is your objection not based in fact but on beliefs that cannot be countered by facts?
If your objection to Tarot cards is about establishing a climate of respect, would you not also wish to engender a climate based respect for facts over demonstrable misinformation? Or should respect mean catering to the irrational beliefs of every student?
Modern "French Deck" playing cards not be objectionable? After all, the royalty represents the idea of the divine right of kings and the caste system. In such a system, the leaders and peasants are born to their places and will never change. Further, royalty represents the idea of a religious government with kings chosen by god. Both of these ideas are anathema to modern democracy and American Constitutional democracy in general. Why should that not be offensive?
Personally, I don't think the cards are offensive, be they Tarot or French decks. Both are decks originally designed for card games with no religious implications and both are still used for that purpose.
Were you able to avoid that cafeteria if you so chose?
Can students easily opt out of the Tarot Card criminal law class with Volokh? That's a question that has been asked several times on this thread, but not answered.
Plus, is there a religious tenet against participating in meals where others are eating meat?
Someone above said there is nothing in the Mormon religion against participating in activities where others consume cola or beer.
That's ignorance about the religion.
Again, students will be forced to listen and "play along" with the Tarot Card silliness, where nobody is forcing the meat or cola, just quietly consuming it.
If these cards were something silently distributed for private classroom consumption (read silently) then there is no need for religious students to participate.
But if this is something the professor will be verbally reading aloud in each class session, it's very hard to ignore and decline "participation". It would be like reading a prayer every day re. religious non-participation, or reading a horoscope every day re. just to be silly because I can.
Plus, I suspect he enjoys creating controversies so long as his own principles are not disrespected.
Nobody has yet answered my question to explain WHY the cards which are most commonly used today by con artists to prey on the gullible are considered demonic or offensive to the beliefs of certain Christians. If you can't explain the basis for a belief, it's certainly not entitled to much respect.
If evolution comes up as some tangential topic in class, must Prof. Volokh avoid it, or may he be "offensive" by stating his true feelings, declaring that science has pretty conclusively demonstrated that evolution exists, that the world is more than 6,000 years old, that mankind evolved from earlier hominid creatures which ultimately evolved from fish which ultimately evolved from the primordial ooze?
My reaction to the easily offended in this thread is precisely the same as my reaction to the Muslims who were offended by the Danish cartoons... get over it. You have no right to not be offended. The rest of us need not change our behavior to make you feel better. And, as I stated in my earlier comment, that works both ways. If a Catholic teacher wants to use Saints cards as part of his pedagogical technique, that's fine with me, too, and any Jews or Muslims or Mormons or Wiccans or Scientologists who might be offended by that need to suck it up, too.
Well, considering that Prof. Volokh plans on using a plain deck of cards as well as a Tarot deck, and allows students to choose, I'm not sure how this is even relevant to the issue.
What people are really objecting to is not the required use of tarot cards (as there is the option of normal playing cards); not the practice of witchcraft (as they will only be shuffled); but their mere presence in the academic classroom. What next? Will a student throw a fit when a Catholic professor decides to wear a crucifix on a necklace?
OK if a state-school professor starts each class off with a prayer? How about a pagan chant? Anti-semitic verses? Shouldn't we be toughening everybody up, disabusing as many privately held religious notions as we can?
Respect is a two way street.
Here, the professor has shown he cares more about being liked as a fun guy, than he does about being respected.
Something about winning the battle, but losing more than one realizes.
If not, why would they even see the cards - except from a distance when you are shuffling through them in front of the class.
If you are passing the cards out and having people write their names, I am positive that in that situation if I were a student, I would write someone else's name on the card so that I wouldn't get called on.
You may want to rethink that - passing the cards out thing.
Will they be using this as a prop every day, labeling students and calling out Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, St. Joseph, St. Jude, evil Judas Iscariot (that's the bad card)?
Do you think non-Christians represented by their specialty non-discrimination groups pitched a fit when there was Christian prayer time every day?
Why couldn't they just sit quietly and tune it out, as an opt out exercise?
Speaking of ignorance about religion, I have yet to see any one answer PatHMV's querry:
There has been much huffing and puffing about Tarot cards being religiously offensive but no one has cited any specific religion's official doctrine on the subject. So far all the objections have been vague insinuations of witchcraft, paganism and demons, with no concssion to just how medieval those notions are. (And, ironically, Tarot cards had no such connotations in medieval times--boy have we slid backwards, we are beyond medieval ;-p )
Look, here's my philosophy, summed up in how I believe we should handle Christmas cards. If you're a Christian, send a Christmas card. If you're Jewish or Muslim or atheist who receives a Christmas card, don't be offended, but appreciate that your friend wishes you well in accordance with the tenets of his belief. If you are a Christian and you get a Happy Hanukkah card, don't be offended, but appreciate that your friend wishes you well in accordance with the tenets of his belief.
If a professor in class wants to have a little light-hearted moment in class with some pieces of paper with drawings on them, don't be offended, but accept that he sees no evil in the things and is not offering you evil, just having a bit of fun. In other words, lighten up and don't be so easily offended. Other people have different beliefs than you. Sometimes in life you will have little choice other than to deal with these people. Learn that lesson early.
To get back to the point of your post, which was to ask for deck suggestions . . . I haven't been able to find any that really qualify as "legal" or "crime" oriented, but there are plenty of amusing decks out there, like the Hello Kitty deck mentioned up thread. Some other fun ones include the Manga Deck (the print quality isn't the greatest, but it's fun and there's plenty of white space), the Gummy Bear Tarot Deck, and the Housewives Tarot Deck (which I think is hysterical, though I think some folks will miss the joke).
Nor do I, although I might prefer dice, if only because the more subtle techniques necessary to get uniformly distributed random draws from a population greater than 6 by rolling them might serve to educate any innumerate students.That's a relief. I was beginning to think it was a new religion that required standing in long lines with a $25+tax tithe to join.At least in my limited experience, 10 year olds don't need Halloween for that. They already are devils.
Oh wait, you said devil worshippers! I stand corrected.
As a member of the current crop of law students, those cards from Magic: the Gathering would be better, or possibly POGS. Of course the problem with POGS is they are rather small, and round. Pokemon cards will be good in about three years.
I have a not-exactly-on-topic question. How can law school be considered public education, even if it is affiliated with a public university? Every student in law school has had to achieve a basic level of education above and beyond that provided by the truly public (i.e. K-12) school system. Every student has also had to meet numerous other criteria to get accepted into the elitist environment that is law school, it's not like any member of the public can walk in off the street and enroll, so how can it be classified as public education?
The same way government employee's can be called public employees or public servants. That doesn't mean they'll necessarily help **you** even if you are a member of the public.
Of course, you'd have to ask the Brits why "public schools" there are actually the private ones...
You know what really would be funny and earn EV the spooky guy reputation?
If the student who selects the Death Card is somehow mysteriously killed. (ok,ok it could be a boring car accident) midway though the semester!
Oooh, scary scary!! Betcha throw away the Tarot Cards idea then...
He isn't just talking about a crystal ball as an ordinary object. He's actually using it for blasphemous divination. Clearly Prof. Kerr is in cahoots with Satan. 1L students should avert their eyes!
That would be what's called a coincidence. Those are the kinds of things that innumerate and irrational people use to build up superstition and the origins of why people are so afraid of Tarot cards: irrationality. Science helps us separate what seems to be true ("He dropped dead after signing the death card! The deck did him in!") fr