Can We all be free?

Can We All Be Free?: Stories for Collective Liberation Through Play

Denisha Jones, Defending the Early Years

Abstract: As an institution designed to sustain American colonization, schooling has never been a place of freedom and, in fact, actively suppresses the freedom of teachers, children, and the families it purports to serve. Children and families are held in captivity where they are legally mandated to participate in the institution of schooling and desire the supposed benefits, but are forced to survive in a system that labels them as winners or losers. As agents of the institution, teachers remain caught in a complex web of trying to do what is best for children under enormous constraints that curtail their agency and disregard their knowledge and skills. Nonetheless, we ask teachers to embrace liberatory pedagogies and culturally relevant curricula to make schools a more humanizing space for children where they can thrive and be free. But what about teachers? Can we all be free? This article explores stories of play as a tool to free both children and teachers. A theory of collective liberation through play is presented based on observations and interviews of play in rural public kindergartens in China, a public school in Pittsburgh serving a historically Black neighborhood, and a private preschool in Maryland. 

Keywords: Collective liberation, free play, liberatory pedagogy, freedom

To cite this article: Jones, D. (2025). Can we all be free?: Stories for collective liberation through play. The Critical Social Educator, 3(2), 6-19. https://doi.org/10.70707/ncsk11243b