Time to bring back Home Economics

[Polishprince]

Girls in high school were traditionally taught home economics, basic skills like cooking and cleaning, that they would need if they were pursuing a career as a housewife.

Nowadays, these young gals are coming out of school without the ability to make toast or boil water.

If the schools got rid of homo ec, they would have more time for home ec. Which is more important, learning how to prepare butternut squash parmesan or learning how to put a prophylactic on to the squash?

Who Killed Home Ec? Here's The Real Story Behind Its Demise

 

[bluzman61]

Girls in high school were traditionally taught home economics, basic skills like cooking and cleaning, that they would need if they were pursuing a career as a housewife.

Nowadays, these young gals are coming out of school without the ability to make toast or boil water.

If the schools got rid of homo ec, they would have more time for home ec. Which is more important, learning how to prepare butternut squash parmesan or learning how to put a prophylactic on to the squash?

Who Killed Home Ec? Here's The Real Story Behind Its Demise

Couldn't agree more with your post. In high school, in my senior year, 1978-79, I was in HERO Club, which stood for Home Economics Related Occupations, which included fast food and restaurant work. I worked for a Jack-in-the-Box (fast food) and two different pizza restaurants that fall, winter and spring. HERO club met every day, Monday thru Friday for 50 minutes. It was a pretty good mix of boys and girls, I remember there were maybe a few more girls than boys. In the club we got to learn about ALL home economics related occupations. It was a nice experience.

 

[MarathonMike]

Home ec was one of my best classes in high school. Both Boys and girls took it. We had a really good teacher and I think part of the reason I can cook now is because of that class.

 

[Lysistrata]

If you want to take it, go for it, OP! I went to school when they still shoved this down girls' throats, like it or not, when the boys got to take wood shop. Unfortunately, I had to participate in the sewing part, making an apron and a dress, which my mother finished. At least in cooking portion I was able to sit in the back most of the time and read Fahrenheit 451 to relieve the stunning boredom generated by someone yapping about asparagus. To this day, I never go anywhere without a good book.

 

[JustAnotherNut]

Cooking, Sewing, Budgeting, Auto Shop, Wood Shop, Ceramics, and IIRC a class called DECA or DECCA or something like that, that taught the basics of running a business and a few others, including Drivers Ed. All these types of classes were 'alternates' that we were allowed to choose from that were actually fun where you could do something with the skills taught.

Of course there were alot of boys in the cooking class cause it meant FOOD.

Now days these types of classes are only available thru the local colleges.

 

[sparky]

Fwiw, they've trashed shop in HS as well, so all those 'hands on' kids never get a chance to realize they could be good tradesmen,& women......~S~

 

[MarathonMike]

Fwiw, they've trashed shop in HS as well, so all those 'hands on' kids never get a chance to realize they could be good tradesmen,& women......~S~

I remember taking Wood shop and Metal shop in junior high and they also were great classes. My oldest son went to a high school that offered welding. He said that was his best class and he got good enough to win a welding competition.

 

[Lysistrata]

You guys are the lucky ones. When I was in school, we girls got nothing but asparagus sandwiches, the four basic food groups, and aprons with rickrack on them. I would have loved to have taken wood shop. I used to watch New Yankee Workshop with Norm Abram all the time, who made it looks so easy, and a hilarious duo who, as I recall, were known at the Furniture Guys. I've seen gorgeous, very creative pieces at craft fairs.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Aaaah yes,metal shop....
Where we made cannons on the sly and took em home and shot one inch ball bearings through em.
Good Times!!

 

[JustAnotherNut]

Fwiw, they've trashed shop in HS as well, so all those 'hands on' kids never get a chance to realize they could be good tradesmen,& women......~S~

Here in Washington state, or maybe just some of the counties districts.....all those alternate type classes, such as Home Ec & Shop, etc are no longer part of the regular high school programs, but are offered thru off-site schools just for that purpose.....or offered at local tech colleges.

My #2 son was one of those 'hands on' learners that was failing miserably at the high school. They pushed him out saying sorry, you can't finish high school here because of your grades. You have to find another school in another district or at the alternate high school. So he tried the alternate HS which he didn't like it either & ended up finishing his HS at the local tech college (getting both HS & college credits) for general mechanics, which he excelled in and the teacher helped get him into diesel mechanics...…...he's now working for a national trucking company and loves it, especially when he gets to drive the big rigs around the workyard.

Strangely, I've had to admit I'm glad of the way things turned out for him...….cause if the school hadn't pushed him out, he'd never have gotten the mechanics training or the confidence it gave him. I can't tell you the difference in that kid....like night & day

 

[sparky]

Fwiw, they've trashed shop in HS as well, so all those 'hands on' kids never get a chance to realize they could be good tradesmen,& women......~S~

Here in Washington state, or maybe just some of the counties districts.....all those alternate type classes, such as Home Ec & Shop, etc are no longer part of the regular high school programs, but are offered thru off-site schools just for that purpose.....or offered at local tech colleges.

My #2 son was one of those 'hands on' learners that was failing miserably at the high school. They pushed him out saying sorry, you can't finish high school here because of your grades. You have to find another school in another district or at the alternate high school. So he tried the alternate HS which he didn't like it either & ended up finishing his HS at the local tech college (getting both HS & college credits) for general mechanics, which he excelled in and the teacher helped get him into diesel mechanics...…...he's now working for a national trucking company and loves it, especially when he gets to drive the big rigs around the workyard.

Strangely, I've had to admit I'm glad of the way things turned out for him...….cause if the school hadn't pushed him out, he'd never have gotten the mechanics training or the confidence it gave him. I can't tell you the difference in that kid....like night & day

I wish your son a long fruitful career JAN

Further, all any kid like yours needs is a little direction, which in public schools is somewhat a premium

For ex, it's any given guidance counselors job to assess and direct those 'hands on' kids towards the potential of a blue collar career

Unfortunately , most regard us as losers , which is in their mind opting out of higher ed.

The irony being those 'blue collars' built this country , and can usually pull down far more than some guidance councilor escapes them


~S~

 

[Lysistrata]

One of the most important take-aways from this thread is the importance of letting kids tell the adults what they like and are naturally good at, rather than the adults forcing them into a one-size-fits-all niche.

The resentment that I had from my schooling in the 1960's centered on the fact that our educational system was stuck in forcing female kids into just one career track with no alternative, which is emphasized in the OP, in complete disregard for the kids' natural talents, while the male kids were exposed to a much greater variety of options depending on their individual talents.

I am so happy for people like JustAnotherNut's son, who apparently was not inclined to the sort of academic stuff that could have led to a career as a lawyer or microbiologist, for instance, but has found his contentment in exercising his natural skills as a mechanic. Hopefully, all kids will be given this opportunity.

As for myself, I am happy (and have received praise) for creative writing, jewelry design, music, legal analysis, and baking (oddly enough). My ex is an electronics engineer. His golf partner was head of construction for the local sanitation department, who told my ex that it was a shame that I was not an engineer based on the questions that I asked when he took us on a tour of some facilities he built. I loved taking a brief course in silversmithing, learning to solder, heat up a piece of silver until it glowed red, and pounding the hell out of it until I got what I wanted.

But this is only me. It's only a summation of the things that I think are my individual talents. Each individual's talents are unique. Let the kids lead. Don't force them into a box that just suits your own ego. The world will be a much better place when each individual has the opportunity to put their own unique talents to work.

 

[sparky]

The resentment that I had from my schooling in the 1960's centered on the fact that our educational system was stuck in forcing female kids into just one career track with no alternative, which is emphasized in the OP, in complete disregard for the kids' natural talents, while the male kids were exposed to a much greater variety of options depending on their individual talents.

This generation has seen many more females join the once male dominated trades

Personally, i applaude those do , it ain't easy walkin' into all male job sites , and quite frankly construction traditionally attracts what are less than socially correct characters

For those of you thinkin' on this, it isn't always upper body strength , there's a lot of 'neck up' involved that makes any of us viable

Oh and, don't forget some of us old dogs are watching.....AND have daughters...

~S~

 

[pismoe]

I knew how to cook at 10 years old , probably due to a stay at home Mom . I'd see MOM cooking supper of breakfast and that's all the instruction I needed .

 

[sparky]

I was raised by a sici family ,who's ladies ruled the kitchen

cooking has always come natural & relaxing ....

~S~

 

[Lysistrata]

I knew how to cook at 10 years old , probably due to a stay at home Mom . I'd see MOM cooking supper of breakfast and that's all the instruction I needed .

I hope that your mother also imparted her wisdom to you so that you know what to do in life and in a crisis.

One of the most beautiful tributes that I ever saw was created by a Native American potter, whose mother was a well-known artist. It depicted him and his sister sitting at their mother's knee as she instructed them.

 

[Lysistrata]

I don't see what is so funny about what I wrote in post No. 16.

I was raised by a sici family ,who's ladies ruled the kitchen

cooking has always come natural & relaxing ....

~S~

Every functioning family is ruled from the kitchen. The Lady of the House must lay down the law.

My grandmother, whose worst language was English and who never reached 5' tall, was in charge of dispensing wisdom and orders. Her husband (Russian Army vet, in the U.S. by 1914), and her sons and daughters knew it and feared her wrath. Nana could demolish her six-foot sons with a look. When one or two of us, her grandchildren, got into trouble, their parents got an immediate dressing down for not raising their child properly. Her tall, tattooed, handsome son, a Navy vet who caught malaria in the Philippines in WWII, was reduced to tears later on when one of his sons was revealed to be involved in drugs. My aunt, career USAF, was told never to bring a divorced man back to the house because he was married. But it was Nana who sent all of her kids into WWII, and she was the one who prepared all of the goody packages that went across the world to her sons who were fighting in north Africa, Italy, the Phillipines every week, and she had one daughter in the U.S. Navy, another one building bombers, and the too-young one working as a black-out warden and patrolling the beaches of Long Island for suspicious landings.

No society can survive and flourish without the guiding hand of the Nana. Respect is appropriate.

 

[initforme]

Cook your own eggs...not a woman's job....

 

[pismoe]

Cook your own eggs...not a woman's job....

---------------------------- that's how I started out , I just cooked simple things like eggs. And then I realized where the cow and pig were stored in the freezer and it was all easy sliding from then on INIT .