Sunday, November 16, 1997

Making learning fun is big business

By KARREN MILLS AP Business Writer

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) - Make slime. Build a water rocket launcher. Raise painted lady butterflies and release them.

It's education. It's entertainment. And it's for sale at a growing number of specialty stores around the country.

The products - some with more obvious educational value than others - cover a wide spectrum. There are chemistry sets from the Smithsonian Institution, geography games from the National Geographic Society and board games like Medical Monopoly, where players try to fill their hospital with patients and ply them with transplant organs and medicine.

Though still dwarfed by the mainstream toy business, education as entertainment is a growing part of the $20 billion-a-year toy industry. At the Mall of America - the nation's largest shopping complex - the Learningsmith and Store of Knowledge chains this year opened stores, joining Scientific Explorations and Brainstorms.

Retailers say the trend is rooted in the popularity of wooden and European toys of the 1970s and propelled by 1990s parents concerned about their children's education.

"I'm seeing a parent population that is concerned about childhood and adolescence and what's happening to kids in this culture," said Karen Holland Scarvie, president of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association, which represents 660 independent stores and manufacturers. "I think they are looking for an alternative to what they have seen."

Of the stores that focus on educational entertainment, some specialize in science, others in licensed merchandise linked to public television or cable-TV programming. But there is no standard definition nor authority on what constitutes an educational toy, and some of the merchandise is controversial.

Butterfly releases, for instance, have been criticized for inappropriately mixing genetics and confusing migration. And some question whether Medical Monopoly and Star Wars Monopoly are any more educational than the regular board game.

But the quest for a toy that will provide fun and knowledge is what brings parents like Mark and Cindy Randall of Madison, S.D., to Learningsmith in search of a gift for their 4-1/2-year-old son.

"I look for something he can have fun with and yet learn from," Randall said.

"Something that doesn't give him the answer right away, something that will challenge the imagination," added Mrs. Randall.

The "specialty" toy store tag was born in the 1980s as boutique and mom-and-pop toy stores met increasing competition from Toys R Us and other mass market stores.

John Wheeler, vice president of the Mall of America, attributes the growth of specialty stores to more interesting products by manufacturers and more parental concern about education.

"Our country is facing up to the fact that we assumed we were No. 1 and there are some things we are not No. 1 in. We are looking at whether we're going to accept that or do something about it," Wheeler said.

Even with new stores opening, the specialty toy industry probably makes up less than 5 percent to 10 percent of the entire industry, said Janet Koerner, executive director of the American Specialty Toy Retailing Association.

"There are no statistics because there is not a definition for specialty," she said.

Koerner, who doesn't own a store, defines specialty toys as highly educational toys not based on character licenses and usually not sold through mass marketing distribution channels.

But others in the industry - even within the same trade group - have different opinions.

"I think that anything that is open-ended and leaves lots of room for a child to experience and express herself or himself is educational," said Scarvie, who owns The Wooden Horse toy store in Los Gatos, Calif. For her, that can include Barbie as well as science and arts and crafts toys.

"The play process is directed not by the toy but by the child," she said. "A good toy is one which puts the child in charge."