What does it mean to be free?

For the past several weeks, students have been learning about slavery to better understand conflict in American History. Because of the gravity of this topic, we wanted to students to dig into texts that portrayed various perspectives of slavery. Students worked in small groups to write reader’s theater scripts based on children’s books. The goal of these scripts was to allow children to process how slavery affected people and our country and work with a group to perform a play. This week, we are using the reader’s theater about slavery as a springboard to discuss the meaning of freedom.

Our objectives in the coming weeks are to engage children in the meaning of freedom and to understand the value of freedom in America and the world today. Here are some examples of what freedom means to some of the children in our class.

“To be free is to not have to let anyone tell you what to do, to choose what job you want, and to not have to work all day. To be free is to have fun and enjoy your job and your life, not to have to be forced to do something you do not want to do. Some slaves were forced to be cooped up inside or work outside and did not have an education or go to school. This is not freedom.”

“Freedom means to be able to do whatever you want and not be controlled. You can do whatever you want, wear whatever you want, eat whatever you want. But even when you are free, you can’t break the law. Slaves didn’t have freedom, but if they escaped from their masters to go north, they could be free.”

“If you are free, you are no longer a slave, you have rights, you are a person, no one owns you, no one physically controls you, you are paid for your work, you can stay with your family, live in your house, own your own property, be your own person, be responsible for yourself. You can learn, you can read, you can communicate, you can meet your old friends and family, meet new friends, not have your children work. You can vote, celebrate birthdays, go to school, no whippings, less worries.”

“Freedom feels good because you get away from your master and get to know what your name is and you don’t have to work all day until sunset. Freedom is a lifetime where you don’t have to work or listen to a master. You listen to yourself.”