#2261 - Warren Smith

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Joe Rogan Podcast, checking out The Joe Rogan Experience.

Warren Smith (0:06)

Trained by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Pleasure to meet you.

Warren Smith (0:15)

Thank you for having me.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

My pleasure. I wound up seeing you, as many people did, on those videos that you're making, where you were talking to students, just kind of like exploring critical thinking and asking students questions and why they're upset about certain things and getting to the bottom. And I'm like, wow, this guy is like, he's young, he's obviously an academic, but super reasonable and like really level headed. I'm like, we need more of this. This is really interesting. And then I found out you got fired for doing that. And I was like, if this isn't an encapsulation of all that is wrong with our current higher education system, then I don't know what is.

Warren Smith (0:59)

Well, to be fair, I didn't get fired for that technically. I think I got fired for posting another one similar to it. But I think they were looking kind of, that whole thing was so bizarre for everyone. It was so big. I think there was, at the school where I teach, there's kind of one, sorry, I got to get used to this, one person in control of everything that makes these decisions. And it was so nuts. I think they genuinely, we don't know what to do, because if we fire him, our name might get out there, which is their primary concern, I think.

Joe Rogan (1:38)

Do you not want their name to get out there?

Warren Smith (1:40)

No, it doesn't feel right. Okay.

Joe Rogan (1:45)

It's not important.

Warren Smith (1:46)

Yeah, it's not.

Joe Rogan (1:46)

No, what's important is that what it is, is that this is a resistance to thinking. I mean, it's really what it is.

Warren Smith (1:55)

It's out there, for sure.

Joe Rogan (1:57)

It's a resistance to questioning why people have, like, certain deeply ingrained thought processes that are a part of an ideology. And I think what you were doing was really pretty brilliant. It was awesome. And I love the way you were handling it. It was, like, you know, very calm and rational, just having discussions with students. And you kind of see, like, a lot of their flailing and trying to rationalize while they have these sort of incoherent beliefs.

Warren Smith (2:27)

Yeah, and I don't teach critical thinking. I was, when I was a teacher, I was teaching multimedia, like what we're doing now, working with cameras, did a lot of podcasting. I had this lab that I developed over four years with a bunch of Mac computers, with Adobe Premiere Pro, Photoshop, a 3D printer. So it was using technology to make art at a special education school, with kids that had behavioral challenges and some, a variety. Anything you could come up with, we had it there. It was like the last line of defense, kind of for public schools that couldn't handle these kids, they would send them there. And so I would just use this tech to work with them in a therapeutic way, kind of that was my goal, the way that would most benefit them. And so one day they asked me to do a, hey, can you do a newscast for the school? Like this week at the school, you know, there was this field trip, the soccer team did this, blah, blah, blah, sure. And we want this kid to be on camera and like to do, he's really good at that. And he was getting really nervous on the day. And so I was like, let's just sit down. You've seen like Joe Rogan and stuff, let's do like, just treat it like a five minute warm up pockets here. I'll sit down and be on camera. You ask me whatever you want. Well, you know, how have your thoughts on Harry Potter changed given JK. Rowling's bigoted opinions? And so that's where the video came from. So I don't, I just want to be clear, I don't teach, I wasn't like, we're going to sit down and learn in the moment. We do have conversations like that because when you are doing something like this with students, well, what are you going to talk about? Kill two birds with one stone to be as effective as you can. And so a lot of students have questions like I had students asking, what's the difference between fascism, socialism? What's the difference between a Democrat and a Republican? They don't know. They're genuinely curious. And sometimes you can get another. I had one teacher that the music teacher I worked closely with, and he was like my best friend there. And he would be in the room often and we would have little debates. And he was from Romania. Yeah, no, I think Romania, I'm blanking. But and so he had a very different political perspective. And when you're in those debates, the kids were like locked in. And you can tell normally they're just making noise and then they're just quiet in their seats, they turn around and they're like watching it. There was an effect.