This project explores the proper balance to be afforded between the Curriculum and Bildung pedagogical traditions in higher education in law. Building from assumptions grounded in pragmatic sociology, it seeks to unravel student’s critical capacities through a three step experiment targeted towards (1) knowing your students, (2) being aware of their epistemological assumptions, and (3) implementing class activities whereby students become co-creators of knowledge. Overall, the project finds a mutual conjunction between challenging the structure of teaching and the structure of knowledge, such that helping students to think outside the box helps to activate their agency as critical subjects. The results further imply an alignment between an ethical praxis of law and Barnett and Coate’s theory of ‘acting,’ ‘knowing’ and ‘being’ as the core of the curriculum, and suggests that acquiring a ‘deep grammar’ of law includes instilling knowledge of law’s place in society.