Pop and Play

Haeny and Nathan welcome Aaron Trammell, Associate Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine. He has recently published two books on play: Repairing Play, A Black Phenomenology , and The Privilege of Play . Both of these books — and this conversation — explore the challenging elements of play, and ask questions about how various communities understand play and access to different types of play. And of...

Join Haeny and Nathan in talking to Erica Halverson, professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, host of the podcast Arts Educators Save the World , and author of How the Arts Can Save Education , and co-founder of the Playmakers Lab in Chicago. Listen to Erica create musicals on the fly, explain Whoopensocker, a community she developed, and talk about the value...

In this episode, Haeny and Nathan go bonkers about fandom with Henry Jenkins, Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts, and Education at the University of Southern California, and Ioana Literat, Associate Professor and co-director of the Communication, Media, and Learning Technologies Design Program at Teachers College. They start off this episode talking about their own fan...

Join Haeny and Nathan in talking to the makers of EcoLeaders , a TV series that’s part of BronxNet Television and available on Youtube that uses puppetry to explore collective responses to environmental issues. Jesus, Paola, and Logan are the family team behind the show, and ask questions like: How can children’s media also be activism? Through their stories of real-world issues impacting kids’ li...

Season 5 of Pop and Play is releasing next Tuesday, March 11! Since this upcoming season is focusing on children’s media, we’re releasing some past episodes where we’ve talked about children’s media! This week’s episode is from Season 2, originally released May 10, 2022! Haeny and Nathan talked with amazing scholar (and mentor to Haeny) Professor Anne Haas Dyson about Masters of the Universe: Reve...

This week, Nathan and Haeny sit down with Dr. Jacqueline Simmons and Dr. Sarah Gerth van den Berg of the Black Paint Curriculum Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University to talk about their new podcast, Curriculum Encounters ! They have an expansive, some might even say playful , approach to curriculum design. They ask us to think about the curriculum of all kinds of spaces and activities, beyo...

This March 11th, another season of Pop and Play is about to roll into your podcast feeds! This season, Haeny and Nathan are exploring children’s media. By talking with game designers, performers, artists, and kids, we’ll examine what it takes to make children’s media and how kids relate to it. And of course they play games and find out “what’s poppin.”  For transcripts of this episode, to learn ab...

As researchers of kids’ play and pop culture, Haeny and Nathan have a few frequently asked questions they get from adults. These include, how much screen time is okay (if any)? How do I design or assess play in my curriculum? Is this game okay for my kid? Search no further! They’re here to bring you the answers you crave. Or will they do that annoying professor thing and wind up just turning them...

We’re back with a new annual tradition(?)! It’s our New Year’s bonus episode - and it’s still January so the year is still new! Nathan and Haeny talk about some of their favorite pop culture topics from 2024, things they want to say goodbye to from last year, and hopes for play and pop culture in 2025. Disclaimer: Haeny and Nathan are not expert sources on the slang the kids are using.  Please tak...

Gun Violence research and hope might not usually sound like they go together, but this week’s special Pop Off guest, Teachers College Professor Sonali Rajan, is here to share progress made in this often challenging field. Sonali Rajan is Professor of Health Promotion and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at...

This week, Nathan and Haeny are talking about “parents’ rights.” Having rights sounds great, but what do people mean when they talk about “parents’ rights”? How is that phrase used in service of the agenda of certain adults, and how does it position those adults in relationship to the rights of kids and other parents? Please take our listener survey ! We could really use your insight and opinions,...

Sometimes we hear “it’s not the time for that” when it comes to play or diving into pop culture in difficult times. When times are hard, we might feel guilty about doing things that seem frivolous. But Haeny and Nathan are here to push back on the idea that there’s something wrong with playing—or when we don’t perform the “right” kind of “serious” response—when we deal with challenges, loss and gr...

This week, we’re going all the way back to season one with “Future Dreaming”. In this episode Haeny talks about speculative fiction and creative reimagining with Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Olu Animashaun, and Lalitha Vasudevan. We’re bringing you this re-release (originally released April 27, 2021) in case you missed this great conversation the first time. We’re going to bring a few older episodes ba...

It’s Halloween! Haeny and Nathan are here to frighten and delight you with some Halloween opinions in a just-for-fun holiday “Pop Off”! Do you have takes on costumes, candy, and scary movies? Follow @popandplay pod and send your thoughts! As a bonus, you’ll get to see the costumes Haeny and Nathan wore for this episode! Please take our listener survey ! We could really use your insight and opinion...

Pop Offs are short bonus episodes of Pop and Play where we bring you short, more timely shows between main seasons of Pop and Play. This week: everyone wants to talk about AI, in education just like everywhere else! Is AI the solution to everything? Is it the downfall of everything? Or maybe, just maybe, could it be something in between? Nathan pops off about the way some AI tools are currently be...

Pop Offs are short bonus episodes of Pop and Play where we bring you short, more timely shows between main seasons of Pop and Play. This week: it seems like there are checklists for everything! A checklist can be a useful tool, but do we need them for children’s play? Can you guess what Haeny thinks? And since Haeny and Nathan have committed to offering alternatives in addition to complaints, what...

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 sha...

There’s no denying it (looking at you, Haeny), on this week’s episode we’re diving into “role playing.” It’s right in the acronym “Live Action Role Playing” or LARPing, the topic of this week’s episode. Haeny and Nathan are joined by Judson Packard, Program Director of the Wayfinder Experience camp in the Hudson Valley that runs LARPing programs for kids. They talk about their experiences as a cam...

This week Haeny and Nathan talk with Amy Parks, and Maika and Maritza Moulite. They are all navigating the world of academia and busy being young adult fiction authors. They talk about why they’re drawn to writing for middle school aged readers, what it’s like to be a YA author in academia, and where they get inspiration. Also, Haeny makes everyone share their most embarrassing memories. Just kidd...

Have you ever been curious about dressing up in character? This week, Haeny and Nathan talk with Alexis and Josh about cosplay! They talk about why they dress up as characters they enjoy in community with others and how to put together costumes (having Josh sew them for you helps). They also talk about why dressing in character can feel risky, including dealing with the risk of harassment. And Nat...

This week Haeny and Nathan are back at the table - the tabletop gaming table that is, with Kent Davis, author of the A Riddle in Ruby fantasy series and co-author of Epic RPG , a tabletop role playing game. He talks with Haeny and Nathan about how risk comes into gaming. What makes playing roles feel risky, and how can players be encouraged to take risks in a gaming environment, without pushing to...

This episode takes the theme of “playing roles” this season literally! Marah and Chris join Haeny and Nathan on the Pop and Play stage to talk about acting! They are a married couple that acts in community theater productions in San Francisco. They talk about how they got into acting, what has kept them coming back to it, and how it feels to be on stage as a lead character and a person of color in...

Nathan and Haeny are joined by Lil Miss Hot Mess (LMHM) to talk about playing with roles through drag, Drag Queen Story Hour, and what it’s like doing drag events for kids. LMHM talks with Haeny and Nathan about her journey in drag, and how drag can be part of modeling possibilities for adulthood with kids. They tackle questions like, how can we defend drag from its critics and uplift its possibil...

Haeny and Nathan are joined by immersive experience designer Caro Murphy to discuss the power of immersive experiences, what kinds of choices go into designing them, and what parallels they have to learning environments and teaching. Caro is one of the designers behind the Star Wars: Galactic Experience the team visited in last week’s episode ! Listen to that too, it pairs great with this episode...

This season is all about “playing roles,” and Haeny and Nathan start it off by exploring a long ago and far away galaxy at the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser immersive experience. They are joined by fellow Teachers College professors Tran Templeton and Alex Bowers for their journey, and then interviewed by earthbound guest host Professor Lalitha Vasudevan to unpack their fantastical adventures. T...