The Teacher

The Teacher Ernest J. Weinrib (bio) I A Brief Reminiscence It has been almost four decades since I met Frank Iacobucci. When I was a student at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, he was my teacher. Throughout all the subsequent stages of his resplendent career – when within the university he was my colleague, my dean, my provost and my president, and when beyond the university he held the highest positions of public and judicial service – I always continued to think of him first and foremost as my teacher. That Frank was a successful and (more unusually!) a beloved teacher is news to no one. His humour and humanity were as conspicuous in the classroom as elsewhere. He projected a sense of camaraderie with his students, making it clear through every gesture and inflection, through every wisecrack, through every histrionic raising and lowering of the eyebrows, that he took delight in being with us, that all persons in the class had his respect and affection, that the joy of learning was compatible with the utmost intellectual rigour. For many of us he did the unthinkable: he made the courses in business organizations and tax fun. In his classes Plato's observation that playfulness is the sister of seriousness1 was constantly and amply confirmed. Business Organizations and Tax are, I imagine, not easy courses to teach. Unlike Torts, for instance, they involve situations that are far from the experience or even the imagination of many law students. The teacher has to present complex material to satisfy a complex set of pedagogical needs. Some students come into such courses from backgrounds that have made them knowledgeable in the basic concepts. Others have no such antecedent knowledge but hope to practise in these areas. Still others have neither knowledge nor hope. They come into a course like Business Organization out of a vague sense of duty, feeling that their experience as law students would otherwise be somehow incomplete. When I started out in Frank's courses, I fell into the latter category. I had come to law school from the study of classical literature and history. It had never previously occurred to me that there was anything about the corporate or business world that could engage the intellect in the slightest. In the first class in Business Organizations Frank suggested to us that [End Page 131] we might find it helpful to read the business section of the newspaper. I still recall my inner reaction: 'Read the business section of the newspaper? Why would anyone want to do that?' An incident a few classes later revealed to me what a wonderful teacher and human being Frank was. Frank was dealing with capital structures, leading the class through a series of operations involving shares. The biz-whizzes among the students were carrying the discussion with what seemed like unbelievable self-assurance and sophistication. For my part, I didn't have a clue about what was going on. After a number of minutes I put up my hand and said something like this: 'I don't understand anything that anybody is saying. I think the problem is that I don't know what a share is. Can you tell me: What is a share?' The class, almost 100 students strong, erupted into laughter at the simpleton whom they had discovered in their midst. But after the laughter subsided, Frank replied along these lines: 'That was a truly profound question. In fact, it is the central question of this course. What we are going to try to figure out over the rest of the year is what a share is, what its legal function is within the corporation, what rights and powers it gives, what duties it creates, and so on.' Frank's response was a lesson in teaching that I have never forgotten, though I cannot pretend always to have lived up to it. In replying in so dignified and affirming a manner, he taught me that every question has to be treated seriously and with respect, that every confession of ignorance is a teaching opportunity, and that good university teaching requires not merely intellectual dexterity but also sympathy, human insight, and...

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