Freedom Dreaming at NCTE 2023

Dr. Tonya Perry and Jacqueline Woodson

My last three posts have been reset to draft. I wrote three posts, published them, and then after careful thought of who might read what I had written, I reset them back to "draft." Unpublished. Unread. I am writing on my blog site for myself because I am too afraid to post my truth. Let that sink in for a moment. This is a less visible form of censorship--perhaps an invisible form of censorship--where writers and creatives no longer feel safe to publish, talk about, teach, or otherwise communicate their thoughts, feelings, and recollections on life and current events. Teachers self-censor.

This chilling effect has been written about in the news, especially regarding teachers and their curriculum. The idea is that all school districts have to do is fire one or two teachers, push strong recommendations, and increase observations, and teachers will automatically shift their content, pedagogical stances, and teaching practices to avoid getting into trouble or facing a possible firing.

While I am shifting my dissertation research to consider our current times more thoughtfully regarding censorship and legislation--the same legislation responsible for the firing of Georgia teacher Katie Rinderlee--I am also forced to shift the very site of my study. I have written about the school clubs and activity policy which was directly responsible, but I am no longer able to hold The Social Justice Book Club at my high school to continue the YPAR work we did as part of the 2022-2023 pilot study. I now have to move my dissertation research site to the public library; so far, the final destination is still unknown. 

Currently, I am writing from Columbus, Ohio: the location of this year's National Council Teachers of English national conference. I am wearing my Lavar Burton Read Banned Books shirt. This is THE Reading Rainbow Lavar Burton. This is the same Lavar Burton, who in his opening speech at the 74th National Book Awards, threatened to fight Moms for Liberty earlier this week. Mom's for Liberty is a national organization that has successfully campaigned for banning hundreds of books across the US, and in some cases caused schools to rework their entire culture around literacy instruction. 

At the conference, here in Ohio, I had a great opportunity to learn from literacy leaders committed to fighting censorship and making sure that young people have access to books where they can see themselves and their lives reflected. Something I am learning is how important freedom dreaming, a futurist perspective, and hope truly are for the work that we are doing and the work that I have yet to do. Even though I had heard many amazing scholars of color speak about and present Freedom Dreaming (Gholdy Muhammad most recently at ELATE), the concept did not stick. This is a hard thing to admit, but I did not understand or see myself in the space of dreaming WITH young people. I did not want to disrespect or step into spaces where I did not belong. But Friday morning, this all shifted with the first session I attended.  Lauren Leigh Kelly (re)taught me about bringing a historical perspective to the work but also the space to dream for the future. Freedom Dreaming is the idea that we have to imagine, and help those we work with to imagine (especially the young people), the world we want. We have to dream it. We have to dream worlds built on equity, worlds where we have complete histories taught in schools, worlds where ideas and books are not seen as dangerous but valuable and essential. Freedom Dreaming requires spaces where dreaming can occur.

On the ride up to Columbus, I listened to The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. I did not realize why I had selected this, so thirsty to hear the stories again that I had already listened to. It was the final story I had heard as I sped toward the city that I have been reflecting on since, consistently throughout the conference. It was about a cat that was trying to convince other cats to dream of a world where cats were in charge and no longer suffered at the whims of cruel human masters. In the story, it just required enough cats to dream the same dream together and reality would be shaped and changed by their nocturnal resistance: their Freedom Dreaming. When the conference is over, and I head back to Georgia, this is what I hope most appears in my writing and research. The YPAR that I hope to do next year with young people must have the act of hoping and dreaming of a better future that we all reach to
wards together. 

Tom Hanks