Season 4
This April 9, another season of Pop and Play is about to roll into your podcast feeds! This season, Haeny and Nathan are exploring how play allows people to try on roles they might not otherwise experience in their lives. With another set of great guests, they learn about Drag, Cosplay, Young Adult fiction, Immersive Theater Design and more. They even travel to a far away galaxy (...Orlando). And of course they play games and find out “what’s poppin.” Follow now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or search “Pop and Play” wherever you listen to Podcasts and subscribe!
Haeny
Nathan, why are you in the studio dressed as a wizard?
Nathan
Dressed as a wizard? Oh, this old thing?
Haeny
And, are you growing a suspicious, measly little beard.
Nathan
A measly beard? Ugh, well, this season of Pop and Play, we're talking about role playing.
Haeny
I mean, playing roles.
Nathan
Right, role playing.
Haeny
No, playing roles.
Nathan
I feel like we're saying the same thing.
Haeny
No. ‘Cause this season is not just about Dungeons and Dragons, tabletop games and live action role play, although important. It's about playing different roles and how it informs our work and our lives, allowing us to try on and try out different parts of ourselves that we've yet to discover, make public, or claim.
Nathan
There are so many different ways in which we all play roles, and in this season of Pop and Play, we dig into many of them. Some people play roles on stage and perform various identities that we might not have imagined yet, like actors or drag queens, and some of us play games with others as a form of community and self-discovery.
Haeny
Some of us play with fashion and clothes and attend cosplay conventions to show our skills and grow our craft through admiration and feedback. Some of us play with characters through writing. And kids, they can basically do it all.
Nathan
This season we take on all of these topics and more. We talk to other play experts, artists, performers, kids and scholars, and we take a few of our Pop and Play pals on an epic adventure to a galaxy far, far away: a galaxy called Orlando.
Haeny
Never heard of it. Season four drops on April 9th.
Nathan
And don't forget to check out the weekly Trashy Awards on Tik-tok @popandplaypod.
Season 4, Episode 9
Children's Immersive Play
This week Haeny and Nathan get schooled. Specifically they visit the first grade classroom of first-grade teacher and education scholar Carmen Llerena and talk to some kids! They learn how to play pirates, all about Rainbow Friends, and how to navigate conflict through pretend play. They talk about how kids use available materials to play in unexpected ways, the role of adults when it comes to shaping spaces where kids play, and learn about how easily imaginary worlds emerge from a pile of blocks.
Previous Episodes
Past Seasons
- Images were generated by Canva's AI Image Generator.
Meet Your Hosts
Haeny Yoon is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Dept. of Curriculum and Teaching. She works with both pre and in-service teachers in designing spaces for children’s play and inquiry. She is also the faculty co-director of the Rita Gold Early Childhood Center, serving children from infant-PreK. The center provides a play-based, emergent curriculum model that forefronts children agency and imagination as central to children’s development.
Haeny Yoon is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education in the Dept. of Curriculum and Teaching. She works with both pre and in-service teachers in designing spaces for children’s play and inquiry. She is also the faculty co-director of the Rita Gold Early Childhood Center, serving children from infant-PreK. The center provides a play-based, emergent curriculum model that forefronts children agency and imagination as central to children’s development. In her role at the Center, she facilitates professional development on curriculum, equity, and racial justice. Her research points towards a pedagogy of play or what she defines as those practices that blur boundaries, destabilize hierarchies, and disrupt traditional ways of knowing. She extends conceptions of play to reach beyond curricular design in early childhood settings and argues for more expansive practices that include our own personal, political, cultural, and low brow activities within all the spaces we (as adults) inhabit. She brings this perspective into her work with doctoral students who study early childhood, literacy, media/pop culture, childhood/youth studies, and curriculum. Dr. Yoon is committed to the merging of public space and academic space, engaging in opportunities where productive conversations converge. As an affiliated faculty member of RESI (Reimagining Education Summer Institute), she maintains a focus on equity, race, and social justice in schools, alongside teachers. Stemming from her work with teachers, she has launched a new website, Using Our Teacher Voice, which serves as a public platform for teacher stories, particularly in the pursuit of racial justice, reckoning, and healing.
Nathan Holbert is a dad who designs stuff and builds stuff. He also plays a lot of games. He’s quite lucky to be able to design, build, and play as an Associate professor of Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design at Teachers College, Columbia University. Nathan likes to build and study playful tools and technologies that help kids make things they care about or ask questions about the world around them.
Nathan is co-editor of Designing Constructionist Futures: The Art, Theory, and Practice of Learning Designs and Founding Director of the Snow Day Learning Lab.
