Situating Myself: A Life Shaped by Play, Loss, and Reconnection

My relationship with play—and with the entire landscape of early learning, care, and education—has always been complex. I grew up in outport Newfoundland, where the outdoors was my playground, teacher, and healer. But by age eight, that world shifted. Poverty and instability moved us into social housing, and play quickly gave way to survival. I learned to work hard, stay safe, and perform—but I forgot how to play.

Years later, during my undergraduate studies in social work, I encountered a mentor who reintroduced me to the transformative potential of experiential learning. Through her, I rediscovered curiosity, joy, and vulnerability—qualities I had tucked away long ago. In those moments of discomfort and awakening, I began to understand what bell hooks meant when she wrote that “class shapes values, attitudes, and the biases that inform the way knowledge is given and received” (hooks, 2009, p. 140). My discomfort wasn’t failure—it was a mirror reflecting what I had lost.

Becoming a parent deepened my desire to reclaim play. I wanted my daughter to know freedom, movement, connection—not just structure, supervision, and survival. Founding two Forest and Nature School programs became a professional path, yes, but also a personal act of healing, equity, and resistance.

But even with these powerful experiences, I repeatedly ran up against a tension that I came to see not as personal, but systemic: the gap between what we know about children’s learning, and what we do in early learning environments, childcare settings, and schools across the country.

The Gap Between Evidence and Practice

Across early childhood education, child care, schooling, and community-based programs, there is broad agreement that play is foundational to children’s learning.

In my Master’s thesis, Playing with Play: Considerations for Embedding Outdoor Play-Based Learning into the Early Years, I explored how play is widely celebrated in theory yet routinely constrained in practice due to system structures, cultural norms, and deep-seated beliefs about what “real” learning should look like (Power, 2023). My findings reinforced what many educators and caregivers feel every day:
evidence alone is not enough to shift practice.

If we were redesigning early learning and education systems from the ground up, they would be playful, inquiry-driven, relationship-rich, land-connected, and responsive.

Yet across the country—from infant rooms to kindergarten classrooms to junior grades—practice continues to be shaped by:

• rigid routines and schedules
  
  

• safety and compliance expectations
  
  

• assessment and accountability pressures
  
  

• risk-averse cultures
  
  

• staffing ratios and supervision requirements
  
  

• funding models tied to measurable outcomes
  
  

• legislation that narrowly defines “learning”
  
  

• regulations that restrict access to outdoor spaces and natural elements
  
  

And these constraints are not neutral.

How Regulations and Legislation Constrain Play

Early Learning and Care regulations, school board policies, and provincial/territorial legislation often unintentionally limit children’s ability to engage in rich, meaningful play—especially land-based and outdoor play. For example:

• Strict supervision ratios can make excursions beyond fenced yards nearly impossible.
  
  

• Licensing requirements may require sightlines and visibility that contradict natural settings.
  
  

• Risk-management frameworks often overemphasize hazard elimination instead of supporting risk-benefit assessment.
  
  

• Play spaces are expected to meet CSA standards designed for manufactured playgrounds—not forests, fields, or natural terrain.
  
  

• School policies prioritize property liability and indoor control over outdoor learning.
  
  

• Educators fear repercussions from licensing bodies or administrators if a child climbs a tree or plays near water.
  
  

• Natural elements (rocks, sticks, fire pits, loose parts) are often prohibited by default.
  
  

These structures shape culture. Culture shapes beliefs. Beliefs shape practice. And practice determines whether children experience play as a birthright—or a liability. For play to move from the margins to the centre—from early learning to elementary education—we need cultural transformation supported by regulatory and policy shifts.

This is where self-dialogue becomes a powerful tool for navigating, challenging, and reimagining the systems we work within.

Self-Dialogue

Self-dialogue is a simple yet profound reflective practice. It involves giving voice to different parts of ourselves—especially when they hold conflicting perspectives. Inspired by Breunig’s (2005) “conversation between two parts of my divided self,” this practice helps us surface contradictions and understand how our own tensions mirror those within our systems.

It also reveals a deeper truth: when we label parts of ourselves—or others—as “wrong,” “naïve,” or “the problem,” we engage in othering, a dynamic at the core of oppression (hooks, 2009).
Othering narrows curiosity. It hardens positions. It makes transformation impossible.

Dialogue—internal or external—creates a space where complexity is allowed to breathe.

Below is a self-dialogue between two parts of my educator identity:

• OPP: the Outdoor Play Pedagogue
  
  

• SSE: the System-Situated Educator
  
  

These voices are not adversaries. They reflect the real tensions educators hold between what children need and what systems demand.

SSE: Let’s be honest: sometimes play feels like a luxury. Children arrive carrying poverty, trauma, racism, hunger, violence. And we’re talking about… play? Shouldn’t we focus on “real” interventions—mental health, literacy gaps, safety nets, food security? How can mud kitchens compete with that?

OPP: Those realities are exactly why play matters. Oppression disconnects children from land, joy, belonging, and their own self-worth. Play reconnects. It is not a soft add-on—it is a radical act. Play interrupts the grind of surviving systems never designed for children. It gives them agency, voice, imagination. The skills children build through play—creativity, collaboration, resilience—are the very skills needed to navigate and challenge injustice.

SSE: But look at the system! Regulations. Schedules. Behaviour expectations. Safety protocols. Curriculum deadlines. Ratio requirements. Documentation demands. School boards terrified of liability. Early years centres audited on compliance. Where does play fit into all of that?

OPP: It doesn’t—and that’s the problem. These systems were not built with children’s developmental needs or rights in mind. They were built for order, predictability, control. Play threatens that. It disrupts compliance. It resists standardization. It refuses to be tamed. As Freire (1970) reminds us, education is never neutral; it either liberates or domesticates. And play, in its true form, liberates.

SSE: Some people don’t believe play is rigorous. They say it’s messy, inefficient, unpredictable. They want outcomes, benchmarks, proof. How do we convince them?

OPP: We don’t convince them with data alone. We show them through practice. Depth comes from intention and reflection—not rigid control. Dewey (1938) taught us that experience becomes education through reflection. Play is the most natural entry point into deep learning because it is embodied, relational, and meaningful. The real challenge isn’t proving rigor—it’s redefining it.

SSE: One more thing: play isn’t equitable. Some children have access to nature. Others have concrete and chain-link fences. Isn’t advocating outdoor play a privileged stance?

OPP: It’s only privileged when we treat play as optional or extra. That’s why play must be built into our public systems. If we rely on families to provide it, we reinforce inequities. Play doesn’t require a forest—it requires permission, trust, and imagination. Access to play is a justice issue. To deny play because some children lack it is to replicate the very inequities we claim to fight.

SSE: So the resistance to play—the eye-rolling, the “that’s cute but not realistic”—that’s cultural conditioning?

OPP: Exactly. People distrust play because they’ve been conditioned to value control over curiosity, efficiency over exploration, and compliance over creativity. These values are remnants of colonialism, capitalism, and industrial-era schooling. Unlearning them isn’t easy. It takes courage. It takes reflection. And it takes play.

Reflection as a Lever for Change

This internal dialogue mirrors the tensions present across early learning and education systems. Schön (1983) reminds us that reflective practice is how professionals learn in action. Freire (1970) expands this to praxis, where reflection and action combine to transform oppressive structures.

Systems change begins with reflective practitioners willing to question assumptions, sit with tension, and imagine alternatives.

Sauvé (2005) cautions against “pedagogical sanctimony”—the idea that one method is pure or superior. Playful pedagogy, like reflection, is not about purity; it is about possibility.

Moving Towards a Playful Pedagogy & Playful Systems

I have so much more to write on this. If we want early learning, child care, and education systems that are just, inclusive, and life-affirming, we must rethink not only our policies but our culture—our collective beliefs about childhood, learning, safety, and what education is for.

Being “of two minds” is not a flaw. It is an invitation:

• from rigidity to relationship
  
  

• from performance to presence
  
  

• from knowing to becoming
  
  

Through reflection, dialogue, and play—and by closing the gap between what we know and what we do—we can co-create systems that honour the full humanity of children and educators.

References

Breunig, M. C. (2005). Radical pedagogy as praxis. Radical Pedagogy, 8(1). https://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue8_1/breunig.html

Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. Macmillan.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

hooks, b. (2009). Confronting class in the classroom. In A. Darder, M. Baltodano, & R. D. Torres (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed., pp. 139–151). Routledge.

Power, M. (2023). Playing with play: Considerations for embedding outdoor play-based learning into the early years (Unpublished master’s thesis). Trent University. https://batadora.trentu.ca/_flysystem/fedora/2024-09/Power_trentu_0513N_11134.pdf

Sauvé, L. (2005). Currents in environmental education: Mapping a complex and evolving pedagogical field. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 10(1), 11–37.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.