Glass and houses

Here’s a loaded question: What do whiskey and cigarettes have in common in my life.  No, they’re not my coping mechanisms at the end of the school year. 

Let me add Kellogg’s cereal and Hershey chocolate.  Stumped? 

These are some of the factories my family toured while we vacationed back in the 60’s.  While they all might not have been age appropriate, they still gave me indelible images about production and a wider vision of how the world works.

Exactly like my recent field trip to Kokomo Opalescent Glass   http://www.kog.com/  and the Seiberling Mansion http://howardcountymuseum.org/tour.php  in Kokomo did for fifteen girls.

In this age where the focus on STEAM has replaced STEM, which replaced math and science, which replaced all curriculum, teachers and parents giving students the chance to experience a variety of careers and opportunities still results in widening their opportunities.

Up to Kokomo



Last Monday, my colleague Beth Roop and I drove the white mini buses up State Road 9 and then headed west for about an hour to the stained glass factory.  The girls shrunk back a bit when we entered the hundred-something-year-old building with its dusty floor and cobwebbed ceilings.  They clearly were out of their element. 

Their attention shifted immediately with the intense heat and blinding glow from the 2600 degree furnace that melted the sand and ingredients.  They whispered to each other about the danger of carrying huge ladles filled with molten glass from the furnace to the rolling machine, but they edged closer to get a good look.  Even they were shocked at the $65,000 monthly gas bill reported by our tour guide.  They smiled as they watched the artisan blowing into the long tube to shape the blobs of hot glass into flat round plates of glass used as centerpieces for stained glass windows.  And by the time we saw the artisans making glass beads and laying out pieces of glass for windows, all of us were imagining the designs we would create if we were the ones behind the work tables. 

Career Connections

During our tour, each of the girls learned about surprisingly different careers: They could be a chemist who created recipes for various types of glass; an engineer who designed the machinery that created the glass; a social media expert who marketed goods across the world; an artist who designed stained glass windows for churches or famous singers like Elton John; even a retail store manager, selling delicate works of art, instead of burgers and fries or clothing.

Howard County Historical Society
After our lunch and tour of the Neo-Jacobean Seiberling Mansion in downtown Kokomo, the girls came away with new career possibilities in historical preservation and museum curatorship, interior design and folklore, all career topics that are now more to them than just majors listed on a college website.

 Lasting Impressions

And more than careers, the girls learned about production and manufacturing.  They learned that goods don’t just appear: There is a process that people create using math and science and language and trial and error.   They learned that the past can give us guidance for the future, if we take time to learn it.

Above all, these girls took with them a wider window on their world, a chance to see how many people take their passions in life and turn them into pleasure for others…while also earning a living. 

What an education!