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This study examines the role of not-knowing, particularly ignorance and irony, in our project of becoming persons. First, I draw upon Jean-Jacques Rousseau to articulate the concept of becoming a person. Considering Emile’s education as well as Sophie’s in Emile, I interpret becoming a person as cultivating the masculine (autonomy) and feminine (relationality), which enable us to live for ourselves and for others in a society. I then argue that ignorance and irony play a key role in our continuous project of becoming persons in childhood and adulthood, respectively. I draw upon Rousseau to discuss ignorance. Ignorance refers to the complete ignorance of things that do not originate from the child’s immediate experience. I focus on Rousseau’s notion that ignorance secures an open mind, which enables a child to begin a relationship with nature, things, and others. I draw upon Jonathan Lear to discuss irony. Irony refers to the loss of one’s routine understanding of her practical identity (social role), which inspires her aspirational understanding of the identity. I focus on Lear’s idea that irony allows an adult to keep an open mind, which enables her to be a subject in a social role, who continues to constitute herself via the role. Thus, I propose a model of becoming a person, in which ignorance and irony play the key role in forming and transforming a person, respectively, by securing an open mind as a person in childhood and adulthood, respectively. Lastly, I explore the application of this model to higher education today. I argue that ignorance and irony can be discussed not only as the two stages of life (childhood and adulthood) but also as the two phases of growth (formation and transformation) which can be concurrent in (young) adulthood. I then propose a pedagogy centered around ignorance and irony, which allows students to learn to become persons in formative and transformative ways. I suggest that this can be a model of moral education in higher education, which not only responds to the current mental health crisis but also revives the tradition of liberal education.

This trans-disciplinary and [trans-modal] dissertation practices the work of inclusive design that students of music (do or do not) encounter as part of their music education. Using inclusive design practices focused on the domains of the written word, the auditory-aural artifact, and the artistic-visual artifact, this work reflects upon three schools of pedagogy and philosophy within the broader academy, primarily not found in the musical academy. The schools of humanism, liberation, and transformation are considered as objects-subjects of reflection utilizing four authors (James Cone, Paolo Freire, Jack Mezirow, and Bertrand Russell); this work is rooted in the practice of critical reflection as understood through the lens of the author Stephen Brookfield. The authors’ assets were collected through analog and digital booksellers and analog and digital library available databases; the author consumed accessibility and accommodative digital programs to aid the researcher. Three themes emerged as follows: one, humanity has largely been excluded from the study of music education, resulting in an intensely human invention often resulting in inhumane practices and theories; two, transformation is a fundamental component of musical education, in that it studies humans transforming both words and music, as well as subsequent performances being transformations of what was to what can be (again); and, three, liberation is the implicit goal at the center of musical education, in that being a music educator is an attempt to liberate the musicianship innate to the human existence from the oppression the body has consumed. Each of these themes written as separate chapters closes with a pedagogy-philosophy of the chapter’s theme. The dissertation concludes with a reflection on music education in light of the pedagogies and philosophies examined. Keywords: Music, ethnography, reflection, philosophy, pedagogy, Humanity, liberation, transformation

Poetry often exists as a neglected form within high school English Language Arts classrooms. Whether taught with trepidation or avoided with anxiety, few teachers feel adequately equipped to teach the reading and writing of poetry. This may feel obvious in an era fixed on quantification of one variety or another. How could poetry—that, allegedly, most luxurious of linguistic forms—flourish in the STEM-nutrient-rich soil of contemporary educational priorities? By first charting the historical precedent for today’s poetry pedagogy, then considering why teachers bother to incorporate the form, and, finally, framing the classroom as a site for communal practice and formation, this dissertation works to build a robust sense of poetry’s educational possibilities for student and teacher alike. Relying on qualitative interview conversations with three public high school English Language Arts teachers who lead poetry-rich classrooms, I draw from the fields of English education, practice theory, educational philosophy, and ritual studies to offer a rehabilitated, prismatic conception of the teaching of poetry. Further, this dissertation argues for a definition of poetry teaching as a particular practice that embodies a character of community, quality of inhabitance, and concern with meaning in ways essential for our contemporary educational moment.