Pop and Play

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.