School Furniture Blog

If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy new office furniture, you need to be sure that it’s the right kind. Worthington Direct features more than 50 manufacturers of home office furniture, room dividers, storage cabinets and more, designed to add functionality, maximize space, and be visually appealing as well. Visit worthingtondirect.com today to find your new home office furnishings.

Here are some tips to help you decide on the right kind of furniture for you:

Is it Easy to Assemble?

Does it come already assembled, or is it quite simple to assemble? What tools will you need? Are the instructions in English and easy to read and follow?

Will it Last?

Does the furniture you’re buying have a warranty? Is it sturdy and strong? Is it real wood or particle board? Look close, because sometimes they’ll trick you and put a thin layer of veneer over the particle board to look like wood.

Is it Safe?

Look at your furniture from top to bottom and make sure it’s safe. Look for things like:

Sharp corners
Position of nails
Sturdiness
Smoothness (no slivers)

Does it Need to be Portable or Versatile?

Do you need to be able to tuck things away when you’re not using them? For instance, a small desk on wheels that you can roll into a corner, or a desk that can be shut up into an armoire are two great options.

Is Your Desk and Chair the Right Height?

Make sure your desk and chair are the right height for you. Sit in the chair at the store, then put the chair up to the desk. Make sure your feet are comfortably on the floor, and the desktop is at a good distance to work from. (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

There are active jobs that keep people moving and then there are those sedentary jobs that keep us pinned in front of a computer. The problem is that sitting all day is not good for the heart or the waistline. We also know, the bigger the waistline the worse for the heart.

It is reccommended that we take 10,000 steps a day, but many office workers top out at less than half of that. Here are some ideas for adding steps to your day:

- Have walking meetings when possible.

- Use the restroom that is not closest to your desk.

- Park as far as you can from the entrance to your office, or get off public transportation one or two stops earlier than you usually do.

- Use part of your lunch hour to walk outside, maybe around the building or to pick up lunch, getting outside will refresh you for the afternoon of work ahead.

(Read More Tips)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Obesity affects all age groups, color and gender including children. The incidence of childhood obesity is rising. In the US alone, the population of obese kids has risen to 100 percent in the last twenty to thirty years. In fact one child out of five is considered overweight.

Today, more children are now diagnosed with type 2 diabetes that supposedly occurs only among adults. Obese children are more likely to become obese when they grow up. Not only that, obese children also will likely develop cardiovascular diseases and will suffer from sleep apnea, a condition wherein children will have an many disrupted sleep while having difficulty breathing.

Genetics is just one of the causes of obesity. But most of the common reasons of obesity especially among children are, consuming too much food rich in animal-based saturated fats, foods that are rich in sugar, and less physical activities. Children nowadays are seldom seen in community playgrounds enjoying children games with their peers. More often than not, they are glued to the boob tube watching cartoon shows, or to their computer monitors playing online games.

Mothers encouraged their kids to eat more than what they can consume. They want their kids to gain more weight than what is ideal for their age. They want their children to look chubby, because mothers have a preconceived notion that being plump “looks healthy” and cute. Little did they know that their children might have already reached obesity stage. They forgot to consider the adverse effects of obesity especially among children. This reason might be a contributing factor to the incidence of childhood obesity. (Read More)

Visit worthingtondirect.com to find durable, eco-friendly and child-friendly classroom furniture and more!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

They call it a cube farm, but sometimes it’s more like a zoo. Office workers sitting at desks in close proximity behind short partitions. The atmosphere can devolve into mayhem. Sometimes the general hubbub isn’t what’s so bad. It’s the stuff going on in the cubicles next door, from the loud phone conversations to the unwelcome effect of a co-worker kicking off his shoes. Worthington Direct features cubicles, room dividers, desks and chairs that maximize office space while still providing a comfortable, functional work environment.

Cubicles make you “accessible, vulnerable and more likely to intrude on the space of others, if you’re not careful,” said Susan Fenner, professional development manager with the International Association of Administrative Professionals in Kansas City. And the workplace trend toward maximum use of precious office space isn’t going away, she said. In other words, don’t hold your breath for a corner office, or any office.

Here’s a short handbook, compiled from suggestions by Fenner and others, about how to be a good cubicle neighbor. We’ve tentatively titled it, “Don’t Clip Your Fingernails and Other Rules for Cubicle Harmony.”

•Do not barge into someone’s cubicle space. Seek permission with a “knock” on the partition. Or try for some eye contact that tells you, “Yes, I can talk now.”

•As a passer-by, refrain from glancing into everyone’s space, craning your neck to see over partitions or staring at computer screens, thank you very much.

•Go to the supply closet rather than “borrow” office provisions from other people’s desks.

•Even though you can clearly hear others’ phone conversations, they are private. Don’t comment or ask questions about them.

•Leave voice mail or an e-mail (or drop a handwritten note) when you want to talk to someone who’s on the phone. It’s not cool to stare at them until they hang up.

(Read More Tips)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Although most students may not agree, recent studies suggest that longer days in school may be exactly what children need to get the most of their education. Additional time spent in class could offer kids a chance to study, interact more with their teachers and peers, and participate in some un-traditional activites making school more fun. Worthington Direct features classroom furniture, activity tables, storage cabinets and more designed to be more comfortable, durable and functional. With our children spending more time in school, the learning environment and its comfort takes on new importance.

Ferris Bueller’s worst nightmare might be the answer to bad grades and dismal test scores. CNN highlights a new trend - extending the length of the school day. The article reports that on average, students in the U.S. spend less time in the classroom than their counterparts in many other industrialized countries. Programs in Massachusetts and other states increase the number of hours per day that students spend in class, as well as the number of days - some programs have kids in school on Saturdays, and may have their summer vacations shortened. In some cases, students end up spending 50% more time in school than they would in traditional programs.

The argument that giving students more time to study will yield positive results is compelling, but let’s face it - not a lot of kids are going to be excited about tacking on another two hours’ worth of lectures about the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. And extending the hours spent in the classroom could cut into after-school sports programs as well as daylight hours that kids could be spending outside at play - an important consideration, considering all of the talk about childhood obesity these days. (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Take Command of the Room with Strong Body Language 

What makes one presenter persuasive and powerful, and another weak and ineffective? Contrary to popular belief, the answer is not your content.

In his book Silent Messages, Albert Mehrabian reveals three elements that most influence an audience. According to his research, these three elements make an audience want to buy from you, promote you, hire you, and even want you as part of the team. In addition, Mehrabian ranked these elements in order of importance to the audience. Here’s what he found:

· Your verbal ability, or your content and knowledge about your topic,
counts for only 7 percent of the audience’s perception of you.

· Your vocal ability, or how you speak, including your tone, pitch and
inflection, counts for 35 percent of the audience’s perception of you.

· Your visual presence, or how you physically look while presenting, counts
for a whopping 55 percent of the audience’s perception of you.

This means audience members make snap decisions about your credibility and level of expertise based on how you look and sound, not on what you say. Amazing! That means your physical conduct and how you manage your body while communicating has more of an impact than what you actually say.

Granted, body language can only take you so far, and if you want people to be engaged with your presentation long-term, you will need to say something meaningful and your content will matter. But since body language sets up the initial perception, you need to know the following rules to communicate strong body language to your audience. Mastering these skills will give your message more meaning and impact leading your audience to act faster than ever before. (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

When Canton parents learned their children’s preschool was moving to the old high school this fall, they quickly pledged to pitch in with the redecorating. They collected a wish list of books, toys, furniture, and electronics from teachers, and then went shopping on their own dime.

Now the parents are launching an even more ambitious campaign — raising as much as $100,000 for a handicapped-accessible playground for the preschool, which includes many autistic children.
In the suburbs south of Boston, active, education-focused parents frustrated with tight school budgets have taken matters into their own hands, accelerating fund-raising efforts that make car washes and bake sales look quaint. Where parents once opened up their checkbooks for team uniforms and field trips, today they help build computer labs, reinstate extracurricular clubs, and revive academic programs lost in budget cuts.

"The $2,000 bake sale, that’s just not enough anymore," said Jon Carson, the CEO of cMarket, a Cambridge-based Internet auction company whose largest and fastest-growing segment is K-12 education. The convenience and novelty of on line auctions, coupled with collectible and recreational bid items, often make them far more lucrative than live events, he said.

In December, the Sharon High School PTSO turned to cMarket to host an Internet auction that brought in $32,000, more than triple the event’s average yield. It was a windfall for a school whose budget has been stretched past the point of asking for educational frills.

"You would think new dictionaries for Spanish classes are a basic," said Dianne Needle, who organized the event. "Well, they’re not." Darlene Borre , who is spearheading the Canton effort, said private donations are an increasingly necessary supplement to crimped public school budgets.
"If it’s just the school doing it, that’s one thing," Borre said. "If the parents are involved, too, that’s another. We want the playground to be something the whole community can be proud of."

Education foundations still primarily award grants for enrichment programs that fall outside of the school budget, but more are financing core programs threatened by cutbacks and other educational nuts and bolts. "Extra has taken on a different meaning," said Carol Rosner, a Milton parent active in PTOs and the Milton Foundation for Education, which raises as much as $300,000 a year. "What once was extra is now a necessity."

For example, parents two years ago revived the Cohasset Education Foundation, which had fallen inactive, after a failed override vote. Believing they could no longer rely on residents to consistently support higher school budgets, they decided to pass the hat among themselves. In December, they raised $100,000 for a new computer lab.

But school officials’ requests for items previously covered in the budget can put education foundations and parents in an awkward position. Rosner said the Milton foundation, which has established an endowment and raises some $300,000 annually, has denied requests for defibrillators and an emergency phone system. (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It’s a concept that would make entertaining television. Take 14 top interior designers from Boston, hand each of them a small studio apartment, give them tight budgets and see what they can do. Better yet, make sure the project is for a good cause: providing housing for homeless men and women who are successfully reentering society.

This is exactly what’s happened at the South End’s Project Place, which moved into a new building at the corner of Washington and East Berkeley streets this week. The six-story facility houses two floors of affordable housing for formerly homeless people who have been improving their lives, have found jobs and are in need of a place to live.

These 14 “efficiency” apartments — studios that include kitchenettes and bathrooms — seem like sophisticated college dorm rooms. Instead of Farrah Fawcett posters and beer bottle collections, however, the interior design motifs are more urbane. That’s because each of these rooms has been designed by well-known Boston designers, many from the South End.

Heather G. Wells Ltd., Dennis Duffy’s Duffy Design Group and Terrat Elms are just some of the interior design companies that donated time, money, labor and goods to furnish and design affordable apartments in Project Place. The design effort, dubbed Adopt-A-Room, besides serving an admirable cause, could serve as a case study in inexpensive design for small spaces.

Each room is different, and each room reflects the tastes and styles of the designers that created them, noted Heather Wells, whose own modern design features soft colors and a “New England flavor.” “If you know the designers, [the rooms] do feel like them,” said Wells, a South End resident. “Going room by room … it’s a lot like how they did their own houses.”

The rooms are small, approximately 250 square feet in area, according to Suzanne Kenney, executive director of Project Place, though some are slightly larger and some are slightly smaller. Each room has a modern kitchenette and a relatively large bathroom. Each of the rooms is furnished with identical beds, dressers and desks, though most of the designers provided additional furniture.

The people who will be living in these newly designed rooms are people who “need a second chance,” explained Wells. The formerly homeless residents will be on their path to reentering society after struggling with unemployment and living in shelters and transitional treatment programs. They’ll be alcohol and drug free and employed, on the path toward fulltime employment. “These are folks who have made a commitment, who have gotten themselves back in the workplace,” said Kenney. (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Thomas George walked through Urbandale High School Sunday and couldn’t help but compare the 86,800 square-foot additions that was the focal point of the open house to the building he learned in during his days at Urbandale.

George and his wife, Marsha, live close to the school and have watched as the $10.4 million wing was added to the building at 7111 Aurora Ave. "There’s no comparison," he said, "the classrooms are twice the size." "We’ve been through all the construction and it has been well worth it," Marsha George said. "We were open and ready for the changes; they were needed."

The two-story addition, opened in January, contains 32 classrooms for math, foreign language, social studies, language arts and special education.

English teacher Leslie Sheridan has been teaching at Urbandale High School for 20 years and said teaching in the new building is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Sheridan said when plans were being made for the building, teachers were asked what they would like their classrooms to look like. "We really feel like we had a say in the building," Sheridan said.

The addition includes updated technology, such as projector and VCR stations in every classroom. To accommodate the new technology, every teacher received a laptop for the classroom. Proper furniture to effectively utilize the new equipment is key in the finishing of the new addition. There are also commons areas that have desks and computers for students to use before school or as an additional workspace for class projects. Foreign language classrooms have small conference rooms within the classroom. (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Designers for the new Durango Public Library discovered that the community’s teenagers know what they want in their part of the building at a focus group held Wednesday afternoon at Miller Middle School. Seven students ranging in age from 13 to 16 shared their opinions and tastes with architect Katie Barnes and designer Marcia Hocevar of Barker Rinker Seacat, the firm that is leading the design team. Topics ranged from colors and furniture to features like neon and artwork the teens would like to see.

Worthington Direct provides colorful, functional and durable library furniture, storage shelves, room dividers and more that are designed with the wants and needs of the modern student and sdministrator in mind. www.worthingtondirect.com

All of the participants agreed that different kinds of seating, from couches and window seats to office chairs - but no plastic - would be good in their 700 square feet of allocated space.

"It would be nice to have an ongoing art project instead of something that one person, who nobody remembers, painted five years ago," Wyatt Lupton, 16, said.  Alyssa Shelton, an eighth-grader at Miller, agreed. She said that keeping things fresh and changing would make people want to go to the library to see what was new.

A linear strip of neon on one wall was the group’s favorite version of that graphic element.
"What’s the airport that has all that neon?" Tyler Gordon, 13, said. "Oh yeah, O’Hare. Let’s not do that, it gives me a headache."  (Read More)

Bookmark It

Hide Sites