In my generation, girls took home a house. Boys took woodworking. If we were to actually implement a proper home economics course, it would have to be taught to both girls and boys equally. And not be optional. I agree with the basic outline that you put up. I would put financial management at the top of the list. Rather Financial education At the top of the list. The debt load that many couples put themselves into early in their married life is a burden they carry for a long time. Teaching home economics with the emphasis on economics might give us a generation of people who can make long-term choices rather than short-term pleasures. They can figure out when to change the sheets on their own.
At my middle school (mid 1990s), we all took "Home and Careers" for half the year, and "Technology" for the other half. I remember learning to cook on the stove, how to safely use a microwave, and how to use a sewing machine (we all made boxer shorts) for the Homes part. Maybe there were some childcare/babysitting lessons? I don't remember cleaning. For the Careers part, we came up with a business idea as a class (I think we sold flowers at lunch), made resumes, and interviewed for jobs at our company.
In technology we used jigsaws and plastic injection molds to make tic-tac-toe games and built bridges out of toothpicks. Maybe there was a computer part too?
I think the list of elements of a Home Ec class you've come up with are interesting because there's a mix of things that are more objective (when is food safe to eat) and things are more subjective (how often do you need to change sheets) and things that seem like they could be or are covered in existing classes (I learned about compounding interest in math, about other cultures in social studies, ELA, and world language classes, and how to use a planner and get stuff done was explicitly part of my middle school curriculum).
I wonder if putting these things in a separate class, rather than integrating it into what school is generally, sends a message that this is something that one can opt in or out of.
My kids' middle school does not offer any Home Ec-ish class, and I haven't seen anything like that at the high school. My own high school offered a Life Skills class, but I'm not sure who all took it.
Home Ec and Shop (woodworking) were available to everyone back in my day in junior high school (we’re talking the mid-1980s here in Canada). I took both and found them valuable; however, most of my homemaking skills were garnered through my mother, who worked part-time while she and my dad raised me and my younger brother. Nowadays, most households where I live (in a large and expensive city) require both homeowners/parents to work full time to cover the expenses of today’s ever-increasingly financial burden. While I do believe schools should be including life-skills classes (everything from cooking to finance), I also think a lot of what we pick up when we are young is what we live with in our home environment. This is getting lost in today’s societal construct (ie digital world) that we are trapped in, with dual-income families who have little time to dedicate to passing on critical “adulting” skills.
In high school, I took Chemistry of Food. It was just a cooking class with one day dedicated to a chemistry lesson that the teacher handed out worksheets for. It was clear that someone higher up felt that a simple cooking class was not enough and they needed to added a STEM twist to justify the class. We learned cooking safety, got ServSafe certified, made simple dishes and made more complex things including a cheesecake where we made the ricotta for it.
My mom and grandmother went to the same high school as me. Home Ec was available when they went. That was the late 90s for my mom and it was not there by the time I went to school in the early 2010s (my mom had me at the end of high school).
I took home ec (why is sewing so hard??), woodworking, and financial literacy in middle and high school. I wish we would bring this back to schools, and start in elementary school too. I do think it should be required for all, regardless of gender. I do think it would help with the mental load that women are so saddled with all the time. The reality though is - this will only be possible if we are also properly funding all school districts. Resource scarce school districts would have a much harder time doing this, maybe?
My junior high school required Home Ec for all students (and Woodworking), but I confess I don't think I took much away from it. I learned more about cooking and cleaning from my high school jobs.
I don't think I took much away from my Home Ec class too. Part of what's tough is that you don't really NEED those skills for several years after, and by then you've forgotten much of it. It'd be cool to teach those classes and integrate with the parents so carryover could happen at home...but that's a tall order.
In middle school, we had to take 1 semester of Home Ec and 1 semester of Woodworking. I remember sewing a pillow and making a small game. It did give me some basics of cooking, but my mom had taught me most already. I don't remember how to sew, and I would not trust myself around woodworking equipment anymore :)
I took Home Ec in high school. Girls only. I wasn't allowed to take the boys only class of woodworking. I already knew how to cook, clean, sew, iron. I did learn how to sew better, iron better. But I'd love to have learned how to handle finances, safety, and most of all how to have good relationships. I had to learn all those later, and sometimes the hard way.
I had home ec in middle school but only really remember sewing lessons from it, which didn't/don't interest me. I am so grateful my high school made me choose between typing or mechanics in order to graduate — those keyboard skills I learned at 16 are used all day every day. I wish I had been extra and also taken that auto body class.
My high school offers a personal finance class, and they're currently learning how how to buy a home. THIS. I asked if I could audit the class as a 46 year old alumni. 😂
YES!, absolutely adult home ec, or what I just call adulting, resources would be wonderful. So wonderful, they're part of what I do/offer! 😄 Classes. Templates. Worksheets. Lists. 1 on 1 consulting — around topics like cleaning, home maintenance, productivity, time management, life fulfillment/ease, networking, hosting, preparing for death of self and loved ones, physical and digital organization, making friends, travel, etc. I noticed awhile ago that what brings me joy and is easy to do is difficult for others, and nothing makes me happier than supporting people in those areas especially if there's any shame or "I should know this..." One of my offerings is an Adulting Kit. Cause it's overwhelming to adult!
Colleges should require a "Real World" class where all this stuff is talked about before venturing into young adulthood.
I adore I know when to re-buy and change ALL the filters in my home, and I wish that for every adult! 😍
I didn’t have the class but would have loved the opportunity. I went to a college prep school and graduated in 2016. My college actually had home ec as a major for a really long time though. Edit: I went to a women’s college. 😊
Our high school (in Colorado) a just reintroduced Home Maintenance & Repair as a class. Also offers Culinary Arts I & II and has a cooking club (part of a national network). 🤷🏼♀️ Our state also requires personal finance (it is folded into social studies), and we have a standalone personal finance class (one semester).
🌟 I'd like to se an alternative the widespread and only narrowly useful pre-engineering math track -- Econ, accounting, stats, personal finance & tax, maybe demographics -- instead of or alongside trig / pre-calc, calculus, etc. Could be equally rigorous, more useful, and less repellent to non-engineering/non-medicine college-bound and tech-pursuing students.
I took home ex and shop in jr. high. The shop class was way more useful. Because we only had one trimester of each the content was very basic and the home ec was things my mom taught me. They had us making muffins and a tote bag. I was already seeing my own skirts and dresses.
I’m so grateful to have the parents I had. They taught us so much useful stuff: how to grow a garden, how to cook tasty meals with food you have in the fridge and pantry, how to grocery shop and stick to a budget, how to host a party, how to take care of clothing. My dad taught us to clean and polish our school shoes weekly and to notice when the heels were running down so he could take them in for repairs. This was all 1960’s and ‘70’s.
I love the book “Home Comforts” since it so neatly packages up things I was taught but lost track of over the years.
I was homeschooled, and some knowledge of how a home runs is absorbed by being home when your parent (my mom) is doing household work. It wasn’t explicit, but I probably caught more than many of my peers educated outside the home. I am now homeschooling my kids (1st grade and preschool plus a baby) and I’m making the household work piece more explicit (dusting lessons and responsibilities and well as weekly baking and sorting of laundry - no one has a personal laundry basket, it’s taken each night to labeled laundry baskets). BUT I still often feel like my knowledge is not as deep as I’d like it to be, and I spend more time learning and adding to my skills than I’d like. If this was wrote from childhood, I could be spending the time I spend now skill building in other domains that interest me more. Or just relaxing etc!
In my generation, girls took home a house. Boys took woodworking. If we were to actually implement a proper home economics course, it would have to be taught to both girls and boys equally. And not be optional. I agree with the basic outline that you put up. I would put financial management at the top of the list. Rather Financial education At the top of the list. The debt load that many couples put themselves into early in their married life is a burden they carry for a long time. Teaching home economics with the emphasis on economics might give us a generation of people who can make long-term choices rather than short-term pleasures. They can figure out when to change the sheets on their own.
At my middle school (mid 1990s), we all took "Home and Careers" for half the year, and "Technology" for the other half. I remember learning to cook on the stove, how to safely use a microwave, and how to use a sewing machine (we all made boxer shorts) for the Homes part. Maybe there were some childcare/babysitting lessons? I don't remember cleaning. For the Careers part, we came up with a business idea as a class (I think we sold flowers at lunch), made resumes, and interviewed for jobs at our company.
In technology we used jigsaws and plastic injection molds to make tic-tac-toe games and built bridges out of toothpicks. Maybe there was a computer part too?
I think the list of elements of a Home Ec class you've come up with are interesting because there's a mix of things that are more objective (when is food safe to eat) and things are more subjective (how often do you need to change sheets) and things that seem like they could be or are covered in existing classes (I learned about compounding interest in math, about other cultures in social studies, ELA, and world language classes, and how to use a planner and get stuff done was explicitly part of my middle school curriculum).
I wonder if putting these things in a separate class, rather than integrating it into what school is generally, sends a message that this is something that one can opt in or out of.
My kids' middle school does not offer any Home Ec-ish class, and I haven't seen anything like that at the high school. My own high school offered a Life Skills class, but I'm not sure who all took it.
Home Ec and Shop (woodworking) were available to everyone back in my day in junior high school (we’re talking the mid-1980s here in Canada). I took both and found them valuable; however, most of my homemaking skills were garnered through my mother, who worked part-time while she and my dad raised me and my younger brother. Nowadays, most households where I live (in a large and expensive city) require both homeowners/parents to work full time to cover the expenses of today’s ever-increasingly financial burden. While I do believe schools should be including life-skills classes (everything from cooking to finance), I also think a lot of what we pick up when we are young is what we live with in our home environment. This is getting lost in today’s societal construct (ie digital world) that we are trapped in, with dual-income families who have little time to dedicate to passing on critical “adulting” skills.
In high school, I took Chemistry of Food. It was just a cooking class with one day dedicated to a chemistry lesson that the teacher handed out worksheets for. It was clear that someone higher up felt that a simple cooking class was not enough and they needed to added a STEM twist to justify the class. We learned cooking safety, got ServSafe certified, made simple dishes and made more complex things including a cheesecake where we made the ricotta for it.
My mom and grandmother went to the same high school as me. Home Ec was available when they went. That was the late 90s for my mom and it was not there by the time I went to school in the early 2010s (my mom had me at the end of high school).
I took home ec (why is sewing so hard??), woodworking, and financial literacy in middle and high school. I wish we would bring this back to schools, and start in elementary school too. I do think it should be required for all, regardless of gender. I do think it would help with the mental load that women are so saddled with all the time. The reality though is - this will only be possible if we are also properly funding all school districts. Resource scarce school districts would have a much harder time doing this, maybe?
My junior high school required Home Ec for all students (and Woodworking), but I confess I don't think I took much away from it. I learned more about cooking and cleaning from my high school jobs.
I don't think I took much away from my Home Ec class too. Part of what's tough is that you don't really NEED those skills for several years after, and by then you've forgotten much of it. It'd be cool to teach those classes and integrate with the parents so carryover could happen at home...but that's a tall order.
In middle school, we had to take 1 semester of Home Ec and 1 semester of Woodworking. I remember sewing a pillow and making a small game. It did give me some basics of cooking, but my mom had taught me most already. I don't remember how to sew, and I would not trust myself around woodworking equipment anymore :)
I took Home Ec in high school. Girls only. I wasn't allowed to take the boys only class of woodworking. I already knew how to cook, clean, sew, iron. I did learn how to sew better, iron better. But I'd love to have learned how to handle finances, safety, and most of all how to have good relationships. I had to learn all those later, and sometimes the hard way.
I'm sorry you didn't get to take woodworking -- that was one of my favorite classes of all time.
A relationship skills class would be amazing!
Love that you're chatting this topic!
I had home ec in middle school but only really remember sewing lessons from it, which didn't/don't interest me. I am so grateful my high school made me choose between typing or mechanics in order to graduate — those keyboard skills I learned at 16 are used all day every day. I wish I had been extra and also taken that auto body class.
My high school offers a personal finance class, and they're currently learning how how to buy a home. THIS. I asked if I could audit the class as a 46 year old alumni. 😂
YES!, absolutely adult home ec, or what I just call adulting, resources would be wonderful. So wonderful, they're part of what I do/offer! 😄 Classes. Templates. Worksheets. Lists. 1 on 1 consulting — around topics like cleaning, home maintenance, productivity, time management, life fulfillment/ease, networking, hosting, preparing for death of self and loved ones, physical and digital organization, making friends, travel, etc. I noticed awhile ago that what brings me joy and is easy to do is difficult for others, and nothing makes me happier than supporting people in those areas especially if there's any shame or "I should know this..." One of my offerings is an Adulting Kit. Cause it's overwhelming to adult!
Colleges should require a "Real World" class where all this stuff is talked about before venturing into young adulthood.
I adore I know when to re-buy and change ALL the filters in my home, and I wish that for every adult! 😍
I didn’t have the class but would have loved the opportunity. I went to a college prep school and graduated in 2016. My college actually had home ec as a major for a really long time though. Edit: I went to a women’s college. 😊
I'd be so curious to see the Home Ec major course list and syllabi!
Me too tbh. I know the capstone project used to be literally running a small household, like budgetwise and stuff.
Whoa. That sounds both really cool and kinda messed up all at once!
Our high school (in Colorado) a just reintroduced Home Maintenance & Repair as a class. Also offers Culinary Arts I & II and has a cooking club (part of a national network). 🤷🏼♀️ Our state also requires personal finance (it is folded into social studies), and we have a standalone personal finance class (one semester).
🌟 I'd like to se an alternative the widespread and only narrowly useful pre-engineering math track -- Econ, accounting, stats, personal finance & tax, maybe demographics -- instead of or alongside trig / pre-calc, calculus, etc. Could be equally rigorous, more useful, and less repellent to non-engineering/non-medicine college-bound and tech-pursuing students.
I took home ex and shop in jr. high. The shop class was way more useful. Because we only had one trimester of each the content was very basic and the home ec was things my mom taught me. They had us making muffins and a tote bag. I was already seeing my own skirts and dresses.
I’m so grateful to have the parents I had. They taught us so much useful stuff: how to grow a garden, how to cook tasty meals with food you have in the fridge and pantry, how to grocery shop and stick to a budget, how to host a party, how to take care of clothing. My dad taught us to clean and polish our school shoes weekly and to notice when the heels were running down so he could take them in for repairs. This was all 1960’s and ‘70’s.
I love the book “Home Comforts” since it so neatly packages up things I was taught but lost track of over the years.
I was homeschooled, and some knowledge of how a home runs is absorbed by being home when your parent (my mom) is doing household work. It wasn’t explicit, but I probably caught more than many of my peers educated outside the home. I am now homeschooling my kids (1st grade and preschool plus a baby) and I’m making the household work piece more explicit (dusting lessons and responsibilities and well as weekly baking and sorting of laundry - no one has a personal laundry basket, it’s taken each night to labeled laundry baskets). BUT I still often feel like my knowledge is not as deep as I’d like it to be, and I spend more time learning and adding to my skills than I’d like. If this was wrote from childhood, I could be spending the time I spend now skill building in other domains that interest me more. Or just relaxing etc!