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Technology use, education technology, and innovations continue to grow in the 21st century. Information is abundant, and it can be challenging to process and decipher. Students are deficient in critical thinking and experience negative effects from the overuse of technology. Liberal education philosophy focuses on building critical thinking and educating the whole person. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenology study was to explore and describe the experiences of K-12 leaders and teachers implementing education technology while following a liberal education model focused on supporting critical thinking, cognitive ability, and the whole person. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight leaders and five teachers to understand real-lived experiences and perceptions of building critical thinking skills within a liberal education while utilizing education technology. Cognitive load theory and humanistic learning theory provided the theoretical framework for this study to explore utilizing education technology tools within a liberal education model that supports critical thinking for the whole person amidst challenges faced today and in the foreseeable future. The foundation of cognitive load is processing new and old information and looking at how we learn, gain knowledge, and use memory. Humanistic learning theory acknowledges the whole person, experiences, and environment to gain authentic learning and reach self-actualization. The findings of this study revealed an understanding of liberal education with aspects of Charlotte Mason as a priority for decision-making in implementing education technology. The increase in negative effects on the whole person due to societal overuse of technology has caused leaders and teachers to limit technology within the classroom purposely. Leaders and teachers shared the significance of narration for building critical thinking skills. In addition, they explained the impact of nature for supporting cognition and physical and mental well-being. The findings suggest a complexity of maintaining balance with technology for those in current practice. Further research recommendations include studying habits and the benefits of nature in relation to education technology. Integrating education technology can bridge liberal education with the 21st century with an understanding of cognitive load and individual well-being. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Overlapping and entangled crises that comprise and propel society require near constant (re)orientation in order to understand, explain, and address the workings of a multiplicitous world. For those invested in education, this means confronting complexity through the prism of teaching and learning. Educational scholars across fields and disciplines have sought to name, describe, and make sense of this complexity. Many do so in ways that recognize the difference between recent events and cycles of change that have come before. In other words, they engage in inquiry with a recognition that a convergence of factors produces this moment as different, and thus requires "difference" in approach to understanding. Building on recent scholarship in posthumanism and social studies education, this dissertation draws upon foundational texts in posthumanism, poststructuralism, and new materialism to re-orient understanding of how social studies teachers learn in the posthuman convergence. In particular, this inquiry explores what happens when social studies teachers are confronted by potentially destabilizing content during professional learning experiences located in a university setting. Considering how learning unfolds in and through complexity, this study examines how the intersecting, overlapping, and nested contexts of the inquiry, within the broader context of the posthuman convergence, intervene in professional learning experiences and shape the ways in which collective and individual learning (un)/(re)fold. Employing transqualitative methods, this dissertation explores the material-discursive entanglements that constitute social studies teacher professional learning. Transqualitative research is a hybrid of traditional qualitative research design and critical qualitative methods that seeks to disrupt the traditional qualitative focus on the human experience and embrace a posthuman perspective in research design and methodology. Data includes ethnographic participant observation field notes, photographs, artifacts, individual and group interviews, spatial maps, and analytic memos. Resisting settled findings, this project (re)orients understanding through disclosing provocations meant to support thinking differently about how social studies teachers learn in highly complex contexts. As such, this dissertation strives to help map the complicated terrain that teachers are currently navigating, while informing those invested in supporting teacher learning in the current challenging environment. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Tennessee's future will be determined by the number of post-secondary credentials of its residents to support economic development. Additionally, Tennesseans must earn living wages to support their livelihoods. Finally, the psychological development of Tennesseans must be supported, which allows individuals to reach their fullest potential. While critical state initiatives such as Drive to 55, TN Promise, and tnAchieves have been in place for nearly a decade, Tennesseans are not graduating from post-secondary institutions at the rate that is critical for individual and state success. In reviewing initiatives and success in higher education, the study was informed by important place-based promise programs and the various definitions of student success. An understanding of self-actualization, humanistic education, and measurement of selfactualization informed how the study identifies the essence of the experience. Utilizing a phenomenological research approach and an interpretive framework of social constructivism, this study has informed the essence and lived experiences of self-actualization among tnAchieves students at Motlow State Community College. Overall findings indicate the essence of self-actualization among students persisting toward a post-secondary credential is represented by a sliding scale-factor duality of shared support and independent motivation. The implications of these findings to policy and practice are addressed. Specifically, implications for policy outlines considerations for policy makers related to revisioning a state master plan in the future, as well as various degrees of tnAchieves program success. Implications for practice support the humanistic education model, as well as effective student support services, peer-to-peer support models, and family engagement. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

While any student is susceptible to experiencing a traumatic incident, students living in socio-economically marginalized communities are often exposed at higher rates. Students from racial minority groups are more likely to experience distress from acts of violence committed against People of color than their White counterparts. For educators working in predominantly Black, Chicago communities, exposure to violence directly and via the shared experiences from students occurs disproportionately compared to educators working in other areas of the city. Educators working within particular communities battle the effects of chronic stress and structural racism, while striving to create hope and academic success within their students. Research suggests that African-American educators' use of culturally responsive pedagogical methods in tandem with their humanistic commitment to students is integral to student success. It is critical that the perspectives of Black educators committed to creating environments where students can thrive academically amidst stressful conditions found outside the classroom are captured. Their narratives can further identify practices necessary to better support success within Black students while also highlighting the impacts felt by educators working in chronically stressed communities. The purpose of this research study is to present educator personal narratives on how they create supportive academic spaces for students to thrive, while highlighting the barriers faced by students and educators on the road to academic success. This study employs Critical Race Theory as both the methodological and theoretical framework to analyze the experiences of participant narratives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Literacy coaching has the potential to center humanizing professional learning pedagogies--promoting equity, disrupting oppression, and recognizing the complex humanity of teachers. This potential can be realized through the use of deep reflection to support teachers' awareness of what guides their behavior and further strengthened by complex supportive relationships with literacy coaches. These humanizing coaching practices not only re-humanize teachers but can influence changes to literacy instruction. Yet, humanizing approaches are often overtaken by more behavioristic approaches in literacy coaching models and the urgency of pandemic-related acceleration pervading schools. In this article, I share the findings of a case study in which I, as a literacy coach, explored the relationship between elements of a humanizing model of literacy coaching, including complex relational and reflective work, and a teacher's willingness to change her literacy instruction. Implications are shared on the potential of utilizing a conceptual framework guided by Maslow's (1943) theory of humanism and Korthagen's (2004) onion model could influence teachers' willingness to change and humanize professional learning. Literacy coaching is professional learning designed to provide teachers with supportive partnerships as they enhance their instruction (L'Allier et al., 2010). However, this enhancement requires teachers to make changes to long-standing practices. To prepare for change, teachers must have the psychological safety and time to explore their beliefs, values, and identities and how these factors influence their willingness to change (Dewey, 1933). Literacy coaches can prepare teachers for this work by using The Collaborative Literacy Coaching Framework for Transformation, which focuses on the cultivation of relationships, the examination of intrapersonal factors, the acknowledgment of their instructional impact, and the need to plan for change. I will share the framework and the stories of three teachers who were better prepared for change while working within it. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Histories of the American community college have largely overlooked the humanistic education movement of the mid-20th century. This historiographical gap obscures leaders' ideological commitment to their institution's diverse mission during an era of rapid community college expansion. Advocates and critics of community colleges have consequently judged their leaders' actions, policies, and practices without sufficient context. The reason for humanistic education's omission from the historiography is twofold. First, the ideology faced considerable academic and social skepticism in the wake of the counterculture movement of the 1960s. This pressure caused many proponents of humanism to conceal their ideological practices under the veil of neoliberal discourse. Second, the sharp division between advocates' and critics' histories of the community college discouraged a reconsideration of the historical record. As both groups advanced their narrative, neither sought to clarify the resulting dichotomous accounts. In part, the lack of collaboration resulted from the disciplinary distance between these groups. Advocates for community colleges often published in practitioner journals, written by insiders for insiders. Some scholars accused these "insider" investigations of maintaining an overly optimistic and uncritical lens. Alternatively, university scholars often authored critical histories. These scholars wrote as "outsiders" -- a distance some practitioners suggested diminished the scholarship's legitimacy. Insider and outsider researchers merely talked over one another, creating binary depictions of the community college's purpose and their leaders' effectiveness. This dichotomy has had significant ramifications for the reputation of community colleges. As this dissertation will discuss, academic micro-discourses dominated discursive production, influencing meso and macro levels. The resulting preeminence of outsider narratives sustains hegemonic power structures, placing insider voices at the margins of the community college story. Discourse tracing provides a methodological approach to bridge this insider/outsider research divide. An investigation of mid- and late-20th-century community college discursive artifacts clarifies potential connotative misconceptions, which allows for a reinterpretation of institutional leaders' agency and autonomy. An account of the humanistic education movement demonstrates that the existing historiography overestimates the comprehensiveness of the late 20th-century neoliberal shift, and underestimates community college leaders' ability to withstand neoliberal pressures. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This post-critical ethnographic study explored the curriculum of being/becoming a middle school teacher that 5 emergency-certified new-to-teaching teachers experienced through the quotidian interactions of their first fully-in-person school year. The curriculum of being/becoming teachers is increasingly important as the percentage of teachers entering the profession through alternative and emergency certification pathways increases each year and school and district leaders inherit more of the responsibility to prepare and develop these teachers. The purpose of this study is to describe how participants developed a sense of students, content, and contexts through the curriculum of being/becoming teachers. Additionally, this study describes how the instructional coach/researcher co-developed and evolved a new teacher community of practice (NTCOP) that pushed participants toward becoming more sensitive, humane, and empathetic curriculum makers. Three questions guided this inquiry: (1) What are some of the core teachings in the curriculum of being/becoming teachers at this school site as evidenced by policies, practices, and relationships between teachers and students in place during their inaugural school year?; (2) In what ways does engagement in a learning group aimed at intervening in the curriculum of being/becoming teachers interact with new-to-teaching teachers' understanding of who they become, what they know, and how they interact with students and as middle school teachers?; and (3) What questions do new-to-teaching teachers' experiences grappling with the curriculum of being/becoming teachers and emerging teacher identity raise about the ways districts and schools provide support? In middle schools, where nearly a third of adolescents experience academic and social challenges due to developmental and cultural mismatches between teachers and students, this study's findings suggest that the curriculum of being/becoming teachers reinforced these mismatches in three ways: school and district leaders assigned teaching tasks as a mechanism of control, middle school policies and practices reinscribed deficit narratives about adolescents, and administrators and colleagues cultivated a hostile environment for new-teacher learning. The NTCOP provided a counter-space for participants to disrupt deficit narratives and to discuss and affirm placemaking practices. However, the participants did not adopt active advocacy stances toward adolescents despite the researcher's efforts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Challenges to empowering secondary students toward engagement in addressing injustice persist in the United States education system. Likewise, teachers feel generally underprepared to support students through the process. A critical examination of literature in justice-based pedagogy and praxis revealed a gap in practical application of justice education as it pertains to empowering teachers and engaging students in a justice-oriented process of learning and doing. A qualitative bricolage approach employed case study and heuristic methodologies to share the professional stories and observations of three secondary teachers within a highly urbanized and diverse county schools district, and facilitate a dialogue between those stories and that of the researcher, a secondary teacher along the journey of discovering practical ways of engaging and empowering students to actively address injustice. Through participation in a fellowship of a justice-based curriculum rooted in principles of humane education and the whole school sustainability organizational approach offered by their county office of education, teachers' stories illuminated a transformative experience that reinvigorated their enthusiasm and hope in the profession. Through a paralleled transformative learning process in the classroom, students were observed to access and activate voice, agency, and motivation toward addressing injustice. Critical and systems thinking paired with social emotional support facilitated a positive learning experience for students as they learned and grappled with injustice. Community engagement activated for many students and teachers a connection with the real world, and fostered a sense of hope in creating a more just and sustainable world for all. The findings of this study offer far-reaching implications for igniting teacher and student passion toward addressing injustice and provides practical advice for education stakeholders on how to implement justice-based, universally inclusive curricular and instructional methods in the U.S. secondary education system. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the wake of the French Revolution and the failure of subsequent governments to enact humanistic reforms, Schiller observed in frustration that "a great moment has found a little people…" As we emerge from a once-in-a-century pandemic, navigating crisis after crisis amidst uncertainty and instability, it is easy to sympathize with Schiller's frustrations. For parents and teachers, the pandemic and its effect on public education have been eye-opening, and present a clear call to action. We are currently in an important historical moment with both challenges and opportunity. For education theorists and policy makers, this moment calls for a rethinking and reimagining of our schools (and schooling), if not our entire educational paradigm. This is a moment that calls for a re-evaluation of contemporary education reform -- a deeply flawed movement guided largely by assessment and accountability culture. Unfortunately, this moment has been met by characteristic smallness and a lack of imagination and dedication to our public commons and social infrastructure of which our schools are an integral component. It is not a reimagining to defund public education; and it is not a reimagining to transfer our current, inadequate curriculum (guided by a flawed neoliberal paradigm) onto a synchronous or asynchronous digital platform. This moment called for imagination, creativity, kindness and audacity, but instead we got a doubling down on efficiency, assessment, and a model of schooling closer to "educational accounting" than anything even remotely resembling a rich and broad humanistic education. The goal of this dissertation is in part to highlight an important concept that could broaden our thinking about contemporary education. That thing is play, not in a narrow, gamified sense but rather the robust rich conception "paidia." In this dissertation, I argue we must re-engage with "paidia" in order to reclaim the ancient notion of "paideia," or an ideal education in the broadest sense. This exploration of the serious play as the basis of education in the philosophical tradition begins with Plato, Aristotle, and others in Greek antiquity, and evolves through the thought of Kant, Schiller, Heidegger, Gadamer, Dewey, and others. Once we have traced this concept from its foundational discussion in Plato's philosophical dialogues through German romanticism and into the 20th century and beyond, we can put this concept into conversation with contemporary schooling and the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary education reform. We also will look at how this idea of a broad, engaging education has been lost, what is at stake if we lose it permanently, and what "paidia" can offer our present age with respect to reimagining education for a post-pandemic 21st century. This discussion attempts to retrieve something important from the tradition of thinking about education more broadly -- "paideia" -- education not merely as a matter of utility, efficiency, or credentialing, but also as a matter of justice. This discussion will inform our understanding of education as a matter of justice and lifelong learning that encourages real fulfillment and has the potential to open structures and potentialities. We will demonstrate that the concept and history of "paidia" are relevant for reflecting on the impoverished education paradigm we have today, but it is also helpful in pointing the way towards a new paradigm. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The title for the project, "Eloquence in Talke and Vertue in Deedes," comes from educational theorist William Kempe's claim that the early modern humanist educational system was guaranteed to produce eloquence and virtue. It is, however, my argument that the educational failed in its promises. This project seeks to dissect the educational practices of the early modern period and reanimate the pieces to show how these practices were regularly critiqued on the early modern stage. More than showing the influence of the educational system in the production of drama, I point out that these practices are re-represented as rebuttals of the educational system. As such, "Eloquence in Talke, and Vertue in Deedes" is a series of essays united by the theme of discontentment with an educational system that failed to meet its promises. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study focuses on the life and times of a monster: a) the creation of a virtual reality (VR) simulation intended to enhance student engagement with Fitzgerald's (2004/1925) The Great Gatsby in a secondary English classroom; b) the subsequent suppression of the simulation when the creation, but not the researcher's intentions, were realized; and c) the eventful affirmation of the simulation when examined through a posthumanist analysis. With Shelley's (1831) Frankenstein as a filter for the reflective process, the researcher uses the concepts of Bodies without Organs (BwOs),entanglements, and agency to explain the consequences and significance of the VR curriculum enhancement and its implementation. The researcher concludes with implications for the future of VR in educational research and practice. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

My dissertation explores the interdependent connection between African oral tradition and traditional African healing strategies found in storytelling in Chicago. In examining a nonprofit based in Chicago that offers cultural education through political resistance oral narratives (i.e. storytelling), my research examines how storytelling can provide emotional and cultural edification for youth and older adults that experience mental, intellectual, spiritual and racial subjugation. My work builds on the work of George J. Sefa Dei, Kmt G. Shockley, Kofi Lomotey, Lifongo Vetinde, and Jean-Blaise Samou, in that it centers African cultural production and knowledge as the source and connection to African spiritualism, communalism, and humanism and thus African traditional healing. Lastly, it presents a structured framework for an African-centered storytelling praxis as a way towards Africanization and healing. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]