The trappings of civilization
Sheel
On the edges of the Thar desert in the town of Barmer is a touristy furniture store-cum-museum. In one part of the store is beautifully crafted modern wooden furniture and in another are exhibited antiquated household articles, from pots and pans to charpais and chests and cradles. Strangely, there are no chairs or tables in this display: they were not used in this once rustic region at least until a few decades ago.
It is quite interesting to look at the history of furniture: equipment to make living more comfortable is as old as the Neolithic age! Stone cupboards and dressers dating back at least 3,500 years have been found in Orkney in Scotland. Aristocratic people belonging to ancient cultures like the Nile Valley, Mesopotamia, China, Greece, and the Indus Valley did use beds, headrests, stools, chairs and other furniture. Furniture came into common use later, in medieval Europe, and spread beyond European shores along with colonialization: it was the Europeans who brought modern furniture to India.
This project offers some ideas and activities related to furniture which can be taken up over a week with two successive periods allotted for it each day. While it is aimed at the middle school level, parts of it can be modified to suit higher or lower grades too. Ideally, teachers of various subjects should work together on this project, but the various sections can also be taken up independently of each other in the classroom.
Day 1. History: The seats of kings
This is an imagined description, of course. Guaranteed to hold the attention of students, especially when, at the end of this, you tell them, “…and a century later, in 1739, Nadir Shah carried away this throne to Iran.” Ask them to imagine the chaos all around, as iron-clad soldiers carrying swords or maces full of spikes in their hands rush towards people, who scatter and flee hither and thither. Some soldiers loot the houses and carry away sacks full of jewels and gold coins. And the royal palaces and the treasury – those are systematically emptied. Ask them to imagine: How was the Peacock throne carried away? On the back of an elephant? Did they have to make a special wagon for it?
Ask: what is a throne? The answer that will echo is of course that it is the seat on which kings sit. Some children may describe the throne as a highly decorated wide chair or sofa as seen in films like Bahubali; others may recognize the word from the TV show, “Game of Thrones,” in which the Iron Throne is made of swords and daggers. Tell the children that a throne is usually placed on a dais or a raised platform that puts it above the seats of everyone else in the room. Draw attention to the fact that even a simple and stately wooden armchair can be used as a throne.
Activities
- Famous thrones of the world: Get the children to work in groups to look for information on the Internet some of the well-known thrones of the world, such as the Dragon Throne from China, the Chrysanthemum throne of Japan, the throne of Charlemagne, the Coronation Chair of the British royalty, the Peacock Thrones of India as well as those in the Moroccan kiosk in Linderhof Palace and so on. Each group can then summarize the information and put it up on a chart with a picture of the related throne, which can be displayed in class.
- The throne is a kind of seat. The variety of seats available to us today is amazing – stools, benches, chairs, sofas, recliners, divans, armchairs, rocking chairs, love seats…. If your classroom is internet-enabled, you could set up a slideshow of these kinds of seats and encourage children to note and discuss the commonalities and differences between them.
- Get the children to closely observe the kind of seating arrangements made in various places such as a schoolroom, a conference, a wedding reception, a party, etc. What do they notice? Discuss with them how seating arrangements may reflect class differences, or other structures of power and authority.
- In preparation for the last day, a couple of groups can research unusual or specialized furniture, like a bed of nails, dental chairs, etc.
- As pre-work for the next day, ask the children to list items of furniture they find around their houses.
- Referring to the list of items they have made the previous day, children can be asked to identify at least as many different 3D shapes as possible, e.g., cylinder, cube, cuboid, cone, etc.
- Another way to draw attention to the basic shapes is to bring a random selection of pictures of furniture from different time periods and places, such as pieces from Egypt or China or Japan, modern office as well as decorative furniture, and even things like reed mats, hammocks, seats made from old tires, etc., and ask children to identify the basic shapes of these pieces of furniture.
- To help children understand this concept better, you could engage them in a craft activity. All you need is old paper cartons, the kind that toothpastes or soaps are packaged in, and some tape and scissors. Bring in a collection of them to class, and ask children to make some item of furniture with them – you will be surprised how, without any instructions, they will make several different things. Additional things that can be used are old bottle caps or the lids of tins and jars, etc. You can not only discuss the shapes but also talk about how regular polygons make for very stable furniture.
- One interesting paper-folding activity that can help explain how a small area on a single plane can be utilized to fill a much larger area is available at http://arvindguptatoys.com/toys/chair.html. The concept of folding furniture, which is also a space saver, can also be illustrated through this example.
- Put up the poster and ask children to identify the tuffet? What other pieces of furniture can they see? Are there things that they do not have on their lists? They can add these to their own lists. Is there any item that looks special or strange?
- Do you know what a trundle bed is? Or a hope chest? Get the children to look up the origins of the following furniture names, apart from the two above: ottoman, nesting tables, davenport, grandfather clock. You could also extend this activity to discuss and debate what counts as furniture and what doesn’t: for instance, do mirrors count as furniture? Or the large frames around such mirrors or paintings? How about railings on internal staircases? And what about things like saddles and stirrups?
- This activity draws upon English idioms associated with furniture. Teachers of other languages can do the same for their own languages. What does it mean to have ‘a lot on your plate’? Or to be ‘part of the furniture’? Or, in more recent parlance, to be a couch potato? Fifteen such idioms are listed below: working in groups, let children find out the meanings of these idioms, and if possible, come up with other such idioms that they may have read or heard in passing.
i) a lot on my plate
ii) bring the curtain down
iii) brush/sweep under the carpet
iv) crawl out of the woodwork
v) doormat
vi) get out of bed on the wrong side
vii) darkening the door
viii) off the shelf
ix) part of the furniture
x) red carpet
xi) show someone the door
xii) turn the tables
xiii) bring to the table
xiv) wet blanket
xv) laying something on the table - As homework, and in preparation for the last day, one group of children could be assigned the task of looking for stories where furniture is a key element of the story, like folktales that include magic beds or lamps, or flying carpets, or fables like Pandora’s box or the story of Raja Bhoja and the throne of Vikramaditya, with its 32 statues of beautiful apsaras turned to stone by a curse.
- Some items of furniture are designed for use in more than one way: for instance, a sofa-cum-bed, or a book rack that turns into a table. Others may be space savers, like folding chair or nesting tables. Yet others may be intended for outdoor use, like deck chairs or picnic table-cum-chairs. Ask them why these are items made in this way. Use this activity to help expand awareness about innovation in design.
- Draw attention to the design element – what kind of structure does a particular object have? Ask: how can a lightweight moda which has a design of one cone inverted over another carry the weight of a full-grown person? Use the following activity from http://arvindguptatoys.com/toys/stickstool.html to get children to understand how the structure contributes to the strength and durability of an object.
Day 2: Math – shapes and symmetry
Furniture offer a great way to learn the simplest as well as several complicated processes of math, from counting and addition to statistics and trigonometry. Here, we restrict ourselves to insights into mensuration.
Every item of furniture is a composite of basic three-dimensional shapes. The regular table or desk is essentially a cuboid, as is a cabinet, a wardrobe, a bench or a shelf. Attach a headboard or a backrest to a cuboid and you get a bed or a chair.
Activities
The items made during these activities can be put up on display on the last day. Additionally, one or two groups can be given the task of looking up the poster that accompanies this project and creating some of the furniture in each of the rooms for the final display.
Have the children watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7xqW_khuOc. Use this to lead into a discussion about patterns, as well as the versatility of the charpai itself, which can come in various sizes, depending on which it can become a cot, or a stool, or even a table!
Another area of math that furniture lends itself to is measurements. Ask the children if they have ever sat on a wobbly chair or stool: why does it wobble? Elicit the answer that one leg must be shorter than the others. Emphasize the need for precise measurements for both stability and appearance.
Day 3: Language: Furniture in our languages
The language we use exhibits the use of furniture for expressive descriptions as much as it does other things around us. A sentence like “Akbar ne terah sal ki umra me dilli ki gaddi sambhali” tells us about Akbar ascending the Mughal throne at 13. Note how, in one language, kingship is signified by the word ‘gaddi’, which refers to a mattress, while in the other, the word ‘throne,’ a very different object, amounts to the same thing. Such variances highlight the differences between cultures: the ‘gaddi’ reflects the Indian practice of sitting with legs crossed or folded under one, while the throne brings up the image of sitting with legs bent at the edge of the seat, maybe resting on a footstool. Bring this fact to children’s awareness, and ask them to explore their own languages for metaphoric expressions or idioms using furniture. They can consult older people in their families, and bring a list of 5-6 such expressions to class the following day.
Activities
Day 4. EVS: Of material use
Traditionally, in India’s villages and small towns, circular platforms were built around large trees. These were the public spaces where people gathered and discussed important things. There were also small open platforms in front of houses, to each side of the main doors, where strangers and odd visitors were entertained. Barring the occasional chair, it was mats or charpais or the floor that people sat on. The cross-legged posture is one that even several gods are portrayed as sitting in. There is a lesson to learn even from the pictures of Indian gods. Brahma and his consort Saraswati sit cross-legged on a lotus, as do a host of other gods and goddesses. Vishnu, one of the most powerful gods lies on a snake, while Shiva sits cross-legged on a skin laid on a knoll. Sharing this with your class, let it lead on to a discussion around types of furniture and their uses, as well as their designs and the materials they are made of.
Alongside the lists they have made, they could also put down the materials used to make that particular piece of furniture, such as stone, wood, plastic, engineered wood, metal, cloth, etc. Note that often, more than one kind of material is used in the manufacture of any given item. What are the advantages of using a certain kind of material over others? For instance, plastic is durable and cheap, while good quality wood imparts richness and substance. Cloth, which is used for a lot of camping furniture, can be folded and packed easily into a small space.
Activities
Day 5: Art and culture
This is the day to go about putting together ideas from all the previous sessions and ensuring there is enough material to exhibit to the rest of the school. Apart from the outcomes of the activities taken up earlier, paper folding and craft activities to create models of furniture can be taken up. For instance, some models that highlight the shapes in the furniture can be constructed. Similarly, others that illustrate the relative strengths or weaknesses of various kinds of design can be created. One group can research how certain places are linked with specific kinds of furniture, either in terms of objects or design, e.g., Persia is associated with carpets, Munich is famous for cuckoo clocks, while Shekhawati is associated with a generic design and material. One group could scan through the Internet and prepare a chart or two displaying unusual designs of furniture (sites like Pinterest are a good resource). Yet others can produce a script to narrate one or two of the stories they have found.
Day 6: Exhibition
Showcase the writing, the art and the models put together over the week. Invite the rest of the school to view the display.
*See their book Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond (OUP 2016).
The author is a freelance writer and editor. She can be reached at sheel.sheel@gmail.com.
