Hey kids! Take a look at home furnishings
Michael Greene -- Furniture Today, December 8, 2002
During the past three years I've been visiting with schoolteachers in the Family and Consumer Sciences sector hoping to light a candle of interest in my concept of Interior Environment (I.E.) at the middle grade level and, at the same time, trying to instill a sense of curiosity about what makes our home furnishings industry important in their students' lives and the lives of their parents.
It's a kid thing that I started in classrooms with my book, "Gee! I Wish I Had a Bedroom That Was All My Own/An Education Adventure in Interior Environment," and which forward thinking retailers like Carls and El Dorado in Florida, Sawyers in Alabama, Wright's in Illinois, and Stage Door and A.L. Myers in upstate New York followed up with their own enthusiastic, hometown participation.
"Consumer and Family Sciences?" you ask. "What's that, Michael?"
It's good ol' Home Economics, that's what. When the Russians let their Sputnik loose everything we touched in our public schools had to have a scientific, up-to-date connotation all the way from Political Science (I think that was Civics) to Consumer Sciences, which was Home Ec. But in part it's still the same school kitchen where my generation produced chocolate fudge that were peddled for a penny a piece. M-M-M M-M-M good!
So what did I discover when the school door was opened for me? I found that students in our public classrooms, who generally might act very blase when they meet a 124-pound hulk like me (with real gray hair), start to warm up when I point out that the interior they waltz into is our territory. We design the stuff and make it, literally from floor to ceiling.
A-n-d, not only all that, we design the living stuff on a high-fashion computer (CAD) and then track it on down to a plant computer (CAM) that creates it. A computer in a home furnishings factory that is not just for pumping out invoices and tax reports? That's a wow-e-e!
So what was I trying to point out, to the delight of the home ec teachers, when I taught how to measure a room "with your body?" Or described the intricacies of a career in interior design? Or bragged about a million square feet of warehousing that was 90% automated? I was trying to open the world of Interior Environment to them... on a plateau of creativity and personal challenges.
"Little" things that serve up a rainbow to millions of people: Like the ergonomics of seating. Like the hues and values of color that change living moods. Like leather that can be cleaned. Like storage chests that "think vertical" for tiny areas and arrive in small, flat boxes with bolts that line up exactly right, every time, when assembled.
Yes! I say, again, that seated in those classrooms are kids that also can produce ideas like a $100 million Post-It sticker or an E-Z Pass for toll roads or a tiny, green gecko to sell home furnishings like it sells car insurance.
And our task? To excite those kids and bring them to our game. Thanks again for listening.
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