'A Kind of Logic, A Kind of Dominant Logic': Navigating Colonialism, Honoring Black Mobility, and Thinking on Moving Through

My thesis thinks through the ways Newtonian logics require linear mobility in order to produce narratives of progress. I argue that this linear mobility, and the resulting logics, potentially erases the chaotic and non-linear motions that are required to navigate a colonial landscape. I suggest that these non-linear movements produce important critiques of the seeming stasis of colonial constructs and highlight the ways these logics must appear neutral and scientific in an attempt to conceal the constant and complex adjustments these frameworks require. In order to make room for these complex motions, I develop a quantum intervention. Specifically, I use quantum physics as a metaphor to think through the significance of black life, the double-consciousness ofland, and the intricate motions of sound. In order to put forth this intervention, I look at news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, Du Bois’s characterization of land in Souls of Black Folks, and the aural mobilities of blackness articulated in an academic discussion and interview about post- humanism.

DIGITAL HISTORY: DESIGNING VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS THAT SUPPORT CRITICAL THINKING AND IDEA EXCHANGE, MOTIVATE AND ENGAGE USERS

In my thesis I argue for the use of system designs that: a) open access to a variety of users and allow for collaboration and idea exchange, while at the same time, b) are designed to motivate and engage users. To exemplify my proposed systems design, I created an interactive and open digital history project focused on Romanian culture and identity during Communism, from 1947, when the Communist Party took power by forcing the King to abdicate, until the revolution in 1989, which marked the end of Communism in Romania (Gilberg, 1990, Boia, 2014). In my project, I present the possibility to recreate Habermas’ notion of public sphere and “the unforced force of the better argument” (Habermas, 1989) and Dewey’s (2004) understanding of democracy as a mode of associated living imbued of the spirit of inquiry within contemporary digital history projects. Second, I outline system designs that motivate and engage users, by satisfying the basic psychological needs outlined in Ryan and Deci’s (2000) self-determination theory: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Two more concepts are included to complete the proposed digital history project design: presence (Ryan, Rigby, & Przybylski, 2006) and learner hero (Rigby & Przybylski, 2009).

WAKING (TO) THINKING BEING: A STUDY OF EDUCATION, METAPHYSICS, MIND, AND LANGUAGE

This dissertation articulates the basic aims and achievements of education. It recognizes language as central to thinking, and philosophy and education as belonging profoundly to one another. The first step is to show that although philosophy can no longer claim to dictate the foundations of knowledge or of disciplines of inquiry, it still offers an exceptionally general level of self-understanding. Education is equally general and faces a similar crisis of self-identity, of coming to terms with reality. Language is the medium of thought and the repository of historical mind; so a child’s acquisition of language is her acquisition of rational freedom. This marks a metaphysical change: no longer merely an animal, she comes to exercise her powers of rationality, transcending her environment by seeking and expressing reasons for thinking and doing. She can think about herself in relation to the universe, hence philosophize and educate others in turn. The discussion then turns to the historical nature of language. The thinking already embedded in language always anticipates further questioning. Etymology serves as a model for philosophical understanding, and demonstrates how philosophy can continue to yield insights that are fundamental, but not foundational, to human life. The etymologies of some basic educational concepts disclose education as a leading out and into the midst of Being. The philosophical approach developed in previous chapters applies to the very idea of an educational aim. Discussion concerning the substantiality of educational ideals results in an impasse: one side recommends an open-­ended understanding of education’s aims; the other insists on a definitive account. However, educational ideals exhibit a conceptual duality: the fundamental achievements of education, such as rational freedom, are real; but how we should understand them remains an open question. The penultimate chapter investigates philosophical thinking as the fulfillment of rational freedom, whose creative insights can profoundly transform our everyday activities. That this transformative self-understanding is without end suggests the basic aims of education are unheimlich. The dissertation concludes with speculative reflection on the shape and nature of language, and with the suggestion that through education reality awakens to itself.

From Content to Concept: Thinking Historically in the Elementary Classroom

In a little more than a century Canadian history and social studies education has faced a barrage of questions that has complicated its delivery in schools. Questions about the purpose of social studies, whose history should be taught and how it should be taught have clouded what the purpose of social studies and history education should be. The current project has employed historical thinking (specifically Seixas and Morton’s six historical thinking concepts) as a lens for teaching social studies and history. Students will engage in activity meant to develop habits of mind, namely understandings of historical perspective, historical significance, continuity and change, cause and consequence, use of primary sources and the ethical dimension of history. The goal is participation in a classroom inquiry, wherein students will collaboratively construct a timeline of Canadian history. Each entry will be determined as significant to Canadian narrative by students, and will be evaluated through one or several thinking concepts.