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title, source, author, published, created, description, tags
| title | source | author | published | created | description | tags | ||
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| School Fires Critical Thinking Teacher Who Went Viral With Harry Potter Discussion | https://briantubbs.medium.com/school-fires-critical-thinking-teacher-who-went-viral-with-harry-potter-discussion-4017f1b66d63 |
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2024-05-14 | 2024-10-29 | Warren Smith, the Massachusetts-based teacher who became a poster boy for critical thinking and a favorite of conservatives, has been fired from his full-time teaching job. He announced the news in a… |
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In a win for Social Reconstructionists, Warren Smith loses his job
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Warren Smith, the Massachusetts-based teacher who became a poster boy for critical thinking and a favorite of conservatives, has been fired from his full-time teaching job. He announced the news in a video on his YouTube channel.
Prior to this latest development, Smith was a full-time teacher at a secondary school in Massachusetts and a part-time instructor at Emerson College. As of today (May 14, 2024), it appears he is still employed PT by Emerson.
Smith became famous when an on-camera discussion with a student (the student was not pictured) about Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling went viral. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch the video below…
The above version has 835k views, but several versions have been floating around the Internet — some with millions of views! This discussion led to Smith being interviewed by conservative influencers Piers Morgan, Dave Rubin, and others.
He has been hailed as a champion of critical thinking, even though his teaching job was in multimedia rather than philosophy. Still, the “thought experiment” he leads the student through in the above video shows a quasi- Socratic method of asking questions to get students to re-think their preconceived notions and biases.
It’s an approach that’s very much the bread-and-butter of Educational Essentialism, a philosophy that emphasizes knowledge, wisdom, and the practical “essentials” of life. Asking questions to provoke thought and additional consideration or reflection is at the core of essentialism.
In the opinion of this author, it should be at the core of education still.
So, whether Smith teaches philosophy, physical education, or photography is irrelevant to me. What matters is that Smith’s approach is a refreshing return to traditional teaching strategies that many wish were still the norm in secondary and higher education today.
Though I am deeply disappointed in Smith being fired, I will stop short of condemning the school that fired him. The reason is that there are several unknowns:
- We don’t know the name of the school Smith worked at. The name has been withheld in his interviews and is not disclosed on his website.
- We don’t know the official reason(s) given by the school for firing Smith. We can only speculate based on what Smith has told us.
There is also something we know, but perhaps need to reflect on, and that is…
Schools don’t like to be in the limelight when it comes to controversial personalities or issues.
A school is in the “business” of educating the kids in that respective district. Everything operates within a delicate “eco-system” of kids, parents, teachers, staff, and administrators all working together in a local community setting to accomplish their objectives. A sudden uptick in media attention centered around controversial developments or personalities (especially teachers) can upset that ecosystem, bringing a lot of unwanted attention and distraction.
Photo by Sam Balye on Unsplash
It’s not unreasonable for a school to frown at teachers becoming celebrity influencers, especially if it jeopardizes the privacy of the students, their families, or the teacher’s colleagues.
That being said…
If what Smith says in his video is correct…
The school handled Warren Smith’s dismissal very poorly.
The school year is almost over. They could have allowed him to finish out the year and not renewed his contract. They could have given him a choice: You can be a celebrity influencer with a YouTube channel and TV interviews OR you can continue as a teacher here. Let him decide. Or they could have given him the opportunity to resign.
They certainly didn’t need to take back his computer the way they did. Yes, I’m aware that employers often pay for laptops for their staff for work-related duties. This was apparently the case here, and thus the school had every right to take back the computer. However…
Employers often let employees use their work laptops for personal affairs when “off the clock.” It happens all the time. Assuming this was the case here (and Smith wasn’t violating explicit laptop policies), there was a much nicer and more professional way for the school to ask for their laptop back.
Given the sudden nature of his firing and the way they took back the laptop (apparently without any warning), it’s clear they played hardball.
The fact that they played hardball tells me there were either a) legal considerations or additional details we don’t know about or b) they were being spiteful and mean-spirited.
It’s the latter possibility that has many people, including me, deeply concerned.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
Whether you agree or disagree with Warren Smith (or, for that matter, J.K. Rowling) should not be relevant to this discussion. Smith’s approach to education is well within the mainstream of traditional education.
Unfortunately (for Smith and, I believe, the country overall), Educational Essentialism (while traditionally mainstream) is no longer “in.” It’s no longer cool. And teachers like Smith who operate by it are seen as being as relevant today as dinosaurs.
Social Reconstructionism is on the ascent. If you’re not familiar with that term, you’ve probably heard of Critical Theory. It’s an integral part of Social Reconstructionism within the context of educational philosophy.
Social Reconstructionism and Critical Theory often veer into indoctrination.
Let’s take the Harry Potter discussion which made Smith famous. To an Essentialist (like Smith), a question about J.K. Rowling’s views on transgenderism is an opportunity for an experiment in critical thinking. To a Social Reconstructionist, such a question is an opportunity to condemn transphobia and examine its effects on those who have been marginalized.
To a Social Reconstructionist, a critical analysis of the views of a privileged celebrity (in this case, billionaire J.K. Rowling) perpetuates the problem of inequity by giving that person even more attention. To a Social Reconstructionist, all energy should go to elevating the marginalized, not trying to be “fair” to the privileged.
Accordingly, essentialists like Smith will always find themselves at odds with progressive reconstructionists who see schools as a means to an end — the end being their view of a more just, more equitable society.
Social Reconstructionists and Essentialists have completely different worldviews and they don’t play well together in the classroom — or in the public square.
This is why education in America today is so divisive, polarized, and often dysfunctional. We have diametrically opposed worldviews vying for supremacy and for the minds of our kids.
My hope is that Smith will retain an attorney and that he will get to the bottom of all this. And, if he was wronged (it appears he was), I hope he gets a payout that makes up for that wrongdoing, plus an apology from the school administration.
Regardless of the outcome of this particular situation, there are larger matters at stake.
We know about the Smith case because of Smith’s recent rise in popularity. Yet this dynamic is playing out (in less visible ways) in school districts across the country.
What is the purpose of education?
That is the question. Is it to teach kids what to think and how to behave (and live, vote, etc.) or is it to teach them how to think (and, in so doing, how to think for themselves as individuals)?
Count me in the camp of the Essentialists. We need to teach students how to think. And that includes thought experiments like the one which made Warren Smith famous.
If we can’t agree on that, civilization itself is imperiled.