Teacher Who Went Viral For Teaching Critical Thinking Gets Fired

Warren Smith Used Socratic Method To Break Down JK Rowling Debate

Warren Smith went viral (after a retweet from Elon Musk) at the beginning of the year when he posted a discussion with a pupil about the Harry Potter author, JK Rowling.

The pupil asked Mr. Smith whether he still liked Rowling’s work despite her “bigoted opinions”.

For those who have not been following the JK Rowling saga, the author is very vocal about sex and gender issues. Rowling believes that trans activism is having a significant impact on feminism and is worried about the number of young women wishing to transition. As a result she has been abused online, cancelled and turned on by former friends and colleagues (including actors she made famous, such as Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson).

I admire Rowling for standing up for what she believes in and for championing free speech. She is fortunate to be rich enough to be able to do so but, even so, most people in her position would not and do not raise their heads above the parapet.

Mr. Smith’s viral video used the Socratic Method to guide his pupil to think critically about the author. It was a masterclass in asking and answering questions to try to establish the truth.

“We’re going to treat this as a thought experiment. I’m not going to say what is right or wrong or which way to think. The whole point is to learn how to think not what to think.”

A week ago, Mr. Smith was fired from the same school in which the viral video took place. He had been teaching there for four yours. Whilst we don’t know the exact reason he lost his job, in a recent update, he suggests it was because of the backlash to his videos.

He is clearly shaken up in his video describing what happened to him. The school seems to have given him little warning and confiscated his laptop containing books he is writing and cryptocurrency codes - a painful lesson showing the importance of data backups.

If Warren was fired purely based on his opinions and way of teaching, this is a disgrace. So long as he didn’t violate any terms of his contract or bring the school into disrepute, then going against the herd and thinking critically should be encouraged. In fact, it should be the norm.

From everything we know, it seems that this is another cancellation due to different opinions causing some hurty feelings. Critical thinking has lost to critical theory, where groupthink is unfortunately prospering.

Good luck to Mr. Smith but as he seems like an intelligent and eloquent man, I’m sure he’ll find another job relatively soon.