Instructor Spotlight: Dr. Rees
Dr. Joseph Rees, one of our favorite Core instructors at OHS, talks with assistant editor-in-chief Rachel Hu about his passions in social and political philosophy, teaching, and more!
As a young student walking around with “blue hair and a skateboard,” Dr. Rees would characterize himself as quiet but attentive in school. However, most of all, he was curious and constantly questioning the things around him. In high school, for example, he was always wondering why he was more interested in the learning aspect of school rather than the grades. The distinction between caring about learning versus caring about grades was even a conclusion that he thought he had arrived at by himself. However, someone pointed out to him that this conclusion is actually Aristotle’s distinction between internal and external motivation. As Aristotle states, internal motivation is your own self-desire to accomplish something while external motivation is something else that motivates you, such as a grade. Discovering that this was a previously heavily discussed issue in philosophy, Dr. Rees realized that he was already constantly asking philosophical questions without even realizing it. He never thought there was a space to discuss and debate these sorts of questions. That is when he knew that “philosophy was probably for me.”
Yet, taking philosophy classes in college was when he became “totally obsessed” with it. In college, Dr. Rees ended up taking around twenty classes in philosophy, thus completing the requirements for a philosophy major twice! He also strived to do everything philosophy-related, including becoming the president of Philosophy Honors Society, editor-in-chief of the undergraduate philosophy journal, a TA for several philosophy classes, and more. Even in his first philosophy class, Dr. Rees requested his professor to not show him any grades on his papers, only comments, so he can focus more on Aristotle’s internal motivation. Although his undergrad was a political science heavy college (and he even considered poli-sci as a backup), it was the bigger questions of politics that interested him. He saw that questions in political philosophy were more emblematic to everyday life, such as Hobbes and Rousseau’s discourse on whether we trust or fear one another. Luckily, Dr. Rees was able to find an extremely tight group of friends in the philosophy department that were interested in these sorts of topics and further discussing the class material outside of the lecture halls.
Dr. Rees also found a lot of value in deepening his skills through his experience studying abroad. During his undergraduate years, he had the chance to study at Oxford, where they had an extremely different and more intimate teaching method. Instead of lecture-style classes, Oxford uses tutorials, where students will meet their instructors one-on-one for an hour to have them just “take your paper and tear it apart” every week. Since he was no longer able to hide in the back of the class and was forced to take accountability for every question, this challenging and slightly exhausting way of learning really helped shape skills even more. In addition, Dr. Rees did a research year at the University of Frankfurt in Germany during graduate school, where he really gained new perspectives on social and political philosophy from scholars all over the world. For example, people in Europe regarded the refugee crisis as the most urgent issue in a way we don’t in the United States, which overall made an impact on his thinking in politics and multiculturalism.
Dr. Rees’ interest in teaching began when someone in 9th grade bought him The Book of Learning and Forgetting by Frank Smith. This book on education theory investigates how the current model of learning of just “drilling information for tests” kills creativity, and we should instead be empowering students’ problem-solving instincts. Dr. Rees admits that he would probably not be doing what he is doing if he did not read that book, since it really prompted his curiosity on good and bad teaching. Then, in his senior year of college, Dr. Rees was a TA for a program where students that lived together and also enrolled in Intro Philosophy could go out together on philosophy-related field trips. For example, they were able to visit the Church of Scientology after reading William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience, or visit the AFL-CIO Headquarters after reading Karl Marx on capitalism and alienation. This incredible experience of having a community of students living and learning together really sparked true excitement for teaching.
When completing his Ph.D. at Georgetown, Dr. Rees found that being able to teach was his favorite part of the day. Since Georgetown is a Catholic and Jesuit institution, every student is required to take philosophy, allowing the graduate students to spend a lot of time teaching. However, while most graduate students were more focused on their research and just regarded teaching as a way to pay the bills, Dr. Rees only fell in love with teaching even more. “I would spend all day thinking about my classes, . . . I would research and write only so that they could let me keep teaching.” He truly gravitated towards the service of helping others understand and break down a complicated idea that he had learned. It would make his entire day if a class went well and he can feel the student’s energy and enthusiasm during discussion. Dr. Rees even headed the Georgetown Philosophy Pedagogy Initiative, a teacher’s club where they all voluntarily met to discuss teaching, research on teaching, and more.
Dr. Rees found out about teaching positions at OHS by accident. Although he was not looking for a job at the time and just browsing out of curiosity, he was immediately attracted the moment he saw the OHS advertisement. “This is the exact fit for me because I love teaching and I want to teach all the time. It’s a win-win, especially here at this school, because I just get to teach smart high school students all day.” Although some of his colleagues at Georgetown were confused about what he would be doing on a computer all day, Dr. Rees himself did not consider the online aspect of the school to be much of a problem. Online classes could get a bad reputation to be impersonal because it is usually used for independent study courses or MOOCs (massive open online courses). However, Dr. Rees only found that he has been able to get to know his students extremely well and build amazing connections, sometimes even more so than in-person. In addition, Dr. Rees also finds tons of other pedagogical benefits to online teaching, such as the chat function or private message to host feature. Ultimately, the only surprise that came to him after teaching at OHS was how sophisticated the students were. He never felt like he needed to “simplify” the concepts with teaching at a high school level because “OHS students are so smart and eager to dive into the material.”
Overall, Dr. Rees believes that philosophy is an important subject to teach to everyone because it solidifies problem-solving and analytic skills. For example, the Core classes at OHS teach a variety of diverse topics, such as biology to quantum physics to poetry to politics. Yet, most importantly, Core is a critical thinking sequence where students are being taught how to think, not what to think. This takes a lot of training, but the ability to think for and rule yourself is one of the most key skills in life that applies to everything else we do. “Learning how to navigate unanswered questions is one of the best gifts with philosophy.”
However, Dr. Rees understands the struggle some students may feel in Core or any philosophy-related classes. Dr. Rees himself has also felt imposter syndrome at first with the subject. He dropped out of his first philosophy class his first semester in college because he did not feel smart enough to be there. Yet, Dr. Rees believes that his imposter syndrome actually turned out to be an asset. He ended up being the TA for that same class he initially dropped out of three years later. “Constantly questioning whether I understood the material ended up actually being a tool for ensuring philosophical understanding.” He understands that it is hard because philosophy is not like learning math, where you start with the basic skillset and then continue building upon that. In philosophy, “people are thrown into the pool and have to drown before they learn how to swim, … there is no shallow end.” Philosophy pushes you to genuinely think through the issue at hand, you can’t BS a philosophy paper. Consequently, since there isn’t a limit to how deeply you can probe a question, and there are no right or wrong answers, it is natural that one may feel disoriented when first starting in the subject. Dr. Rees’ was disoriented too, and it took him around three or four years of writing and thinking and discussing before he finally was able to get his bearings.
A helpful model Dr. Rees illustrates is Perry’s Model, which represents stages of intellectual development. First, it is Fundamentalism, where it is only right and wrong. Next, is Relativism, where there is no right answer, all knowledge occurs in context. Then after is Pluralism, where even though there is no right or wrong answer, we can still have productive inquiry. This is reflected in MSB, where the first thing freshmen learn is that “science is a rigorous process of inductive reasoning.” But inductive reasoning is a type of reasoning that yields at best uncertain results, so it logistically follows that science is always uncertain. All in all, “one of the chief virtues that students can develop is a tolerance for ambiguity.” Thus, the Core sequence is trying to foster an environment where we are open to diverse standpoints and are comfortable navigating ambiguous questions. The best advice is just to “keep swimming until you learn to swim.”
“It will pay off because you will end up loving it. Because there are no right answers, it tends to shake people’s confidence. But if people hang in there, and trust the process, they’ll find themselves learning to see the whole world in a different and really exciting way. I really think it’s worth it.”
In the future, he hopes to be able to teach an Advanced Topics in Philosophy class at OHS, specifically either Authenticity & the Good Life or Injustice. Career-wise, Dr. Rees just hopes he can continue to “talk about philosophy all day!” Outside of philosophy, Dr. Rees loves to travel. After his research year in Germany, he “caught the travel bug,” even visiting 10 countries in one year! He also loves to hike, is part of a running club and adult dodgeball league, and was an avid concert-goer. He used to go to a show at least once every other week before COVID. His favorite concert he has ever attended was Christine & the Queens in Oakland, where the dancing and theater in addition to the music made it a wild experience.
4 Questions with Dr. Rees
Pixel Journal: Students who have you all know that you stand during class. Why do you choose to use a standing desk?
Dr. Rees: It was sort of by accident. OHS offered to get me a desk when I started working here, and I had no idea it was going to be a standing desk but then they just sent me a standing desk. But overall, I can’t think sitting down. I go on long walks, a lot, and that’s when I do most of my thinking. When I was doing my dissertation, I would go on these eight-mile walks every day for a couple of hours to do my thinking. Aristotle taught his classes in a Peripatetic school of philosophy, which meant that he didn’t hold classes but rather taught while walking around the gardens with his students. Similar to Aristotle, pacing helps me think.
[PJ: Do you ever get tired?]
No, I don’t because class is so energizing for me as a teacher! If anything, I need to calm down after class. It’s sort of an adrenaline rush to talk about philosophy for that long.
PJ: If you stumbled upon 10 million dollars and had to spend it in 24 hours, what would you do with it?
Dr. Rees: My first impulse would be to go skydiving, but how much could that possibly cost? Like $250? So I’d still have nine million something dollars…
Pretending that we’re not in COVID, I would buy year-round, all-access flight and train tickets and some sort of hotel or Airbnb set up so that I could just move around the world without a thought. Because that’s one of my big goals in life, I want to see the entire world.
PJ: What is your comfort show?
Dr. Rees: My comfort show is so obviously Parks and Recreation. I could watch that until I die and not get bored and just be in a good mood the entire time.
PJ: What are some of your favorite philosophers?
Dr. Rees: I have trouble staying still, so I go through phases. My first loves in philosophy were Rawls and Marx. Then I went through a big phase of Heidegger, this far-out existentialist guy. And then my most recent love was for Rousseau, but I don’t think Rousseau is right about much of anything. But I find it more interesting to read about philosophers that I think are wrong in interesting ways than philosophers who got everything right. One of my favorite books about Rousseau is called The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau’s Thought, by Arthur Melzer. The first sentence is: I’m not a Rousseaun, nor do I know anyone who is, but I like reading Rousseau. And that’s how I feel. Rousseau’s philosophy is so personal, not just abstract ideas. He is always talking about his life, and his life is kind of a mess, and so is his thinking as a result. But it’s a mess in ways that reflect difficulties and philosophical conundrums that we all have, and we inherit culturally from Rousseau. Melzer, the same author, once said that reading Rousseau is like doing archaeology of the modern mind. You see all these cliché ideas, like let yourself be authentic, that seem so obvious to us. But for Rousseau, they were fresh new ideas, and he was able to see them in all their richness. And that’s why I find reading Rousseau so interesting, even though he did everything wrong.
