I don’t remember when I first started writing, but I know I wouldn’t be a writer today without the tireless work of many teachers over the years. I also grew up in a home with a teacher. My step father taught high school for more than 30 years in the Grand Rapids area. I tell you that as a way of explaining the great respect I have for teachers — from Mrs. Hesse, my kindergarten teacher, to the many professors at Michigan State University who shaped my career and my life.

I think that’s why I enjoy attending EDspaces so much, which just wrapped up in Columbus. The annual gathering of educators and the designers and manufacturers who create the classrooms of the future along with them is just what the design world needs on a cool week every fall.

It’s just what I needed too. The educational furniture market is important to readers of officeinsight magazine, and stories about cutting edge classrooms can be found regularly on our digital pages. It is a market that I’m still learning about (who am I kidding: I’m still learning about all the markets I cover), which makes the three-day event even more exciting.

There are new brands to discover in the exhibition hall and new things to learn during the educational sessions and I throw myself into the event each year. And what I found this year is that education is going through profound changes along with the schools and classrooms that support it. That shouldn’t be surprising, I suppose. Education intersects deeply with culture, technology and human behavior. As society changes, so does education.

Like the office, hospitality and healthcare segments, schools and classrooms are benfitting from new materials, flexible furniture systems, immersive AV and smart-classroom technology. Educational furniture products are just, well, fun. A lot of the furniture is brightly colored and immersive — something the office market should take notes on.

The office market strives to create healthy spaces that focus on things like healthy spaces and acoustics. For the educational furniture market, those things are critical.

In the sessions I attended and from the manufacturers I spoke to, there was a strong emphasis on adaptability. Educational institutions are no longer planning “one space fits all.” They’re designing for flux. Today’s students arrive with different skills and deficiencies, digital fluency, collaborative habits and expectations around environmental well-being. EDspaces showed the design industry how classrooms can morph into studios, how informal lounge zones sit next to focused pods, how daylight and how views matter not just aesthetically but neurologically. I heard one speaker reflect: “If the space doesn’t flex, the pedagogy will outpace it.” And that’s exactly the kind of clarity the market needs.

While classrooms are important, schools are leaning into non-traditional spaces as well. On display at EDspaces were makerspaces where students can explore using their hands as well as their minds; eSports classrooms where video games are used as a tool to teach students how to program while creating community; and playful collaborative spaces where students can read or gather to work on projects.

So what are my take-aways? First: design for change, not for yesterday’s rhythms. Second: wellness and belonging are measurable in space. Third: the design ecosystem of schools needs to consider things like culture and behavior — a view broader than product and layout. And finally: conferences like EDspaces matter because they pull together the ecosystem — designer, manufacturer and educator into one forum of possibility.

Leaving Columbus, I found myself thinking about what the student in 2030 will remember about the space they studied in. Will they remember the furniture? I vividly remember the wooden desks with couple’s names and other graffiti carved into them. If I close my eyes, I can still remember how they smell.

Will students of the future remember how the space made them feel, how easy it was to collaborate, how the room adapted when they needed it? Though most students don’t consider it when they are in school, it matters.