Home economics classes , anyone remember?

[MRG]

I loved my junior high home economics classes. One year was sewing, another was cooking. In the sewing class I learned a lot of mending techniques that I still use. The cooking class included basic techniques and food safety that I still use.

Somewhere in those classes we also had a unit on fingernail care and how to sit like a lady. Nope, don't use any of those!

Another poster mentioned a shop teacher with missing fingers. When our sons were in middle school the shop teacher really did have a missing finger! But it wasn't a shop injury, every year he had to explain an unrelated accident.

When our sons were in high school one of them had a wonderful class teaching basic home maintenance and repair. This included drywall repair, basic electrical wiring, soldering, wall construction and plumbing. Our younger son soaked up every bit of that class and uses the skills all the time, enhanced now by YouTube.

Well..... it was 9th grade metal shop when Dannie almost took my pinky off with a hacksaw. He didn't take the bone so just a flesh wound, except the nerve was on fire for many years.

The teacher acted quickly to disinfect his hands and I think he was going to bandage it. I remember watching him washing his hands with Ajax, thinking how sanitary that was, and I woke up in the nurses office. [emoji15]

 

[audreyh1]

I remember learning double-entry bookkeeping in junior high, but it wasn't in a home economics type class. I didn't know at the time that it hailed from late medieval/early renaissance in Europe (imported from the Middle East).

I also have vague memories of doing loads of logarithms.........

We did have a cooking class and a sewing class and it was for the girls. I remember making some goodies that I took home that my parents raved about, LOL! In particular a mango chutney. I learned several dishes, but I learned a lot more from my mom.

The sewing - I remember learning various embroidery stitches and traditions, and how tough the French Knot was. My sewing and embroidery was pretty lame. We used those old mechanical foot treadle sewing machines.

I also took a typing class in high school. I was never fast enough! But at least I did memorize the keyboard which got me through college.....

 

[audreyh1]

People who thought you unintelligent because of the color of your skin or your gender started to change their view of you when you could solve math problems they could not .

FIFY

omni

Yep - being the only girl in high school physics and calculus, this set the record straight right away.

 

[Koolau]

I grew up a "victim" of the sexist system that said boys take Shop and girls take Home Ec. There WERE no options to do otherwise. Worse, there was a stigma for boys to take typing. Still, I was one of 3 boys and 50+ girls in typing class ca. 1963. How fortunate I was to have insisted to my guidance councillor (the male chauvinist pig ) that SOMEDAY, typing would be important to everyone.

My typing teacher put the boys in the very back of the room. Since our school was old, temperature control was that the radiators radiated, and the teacher opened the windows - at the back of the room. SO the boys learned to type with frozen fingers. I beat most of the girls at speed (and all evidence to the contrary now, heh, heh) accuracy. I got A's and B's. YMMV

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I took typing, home economics, auto body shop and auto mechanic shop and loved all the classes.

The most useful was the typing class, especially when it came to law school. There are SOOO many books/articles/etc. about how to prepare for law school and a typing class is NEVER mentioned. I think this is ironic because most exams are essay types that are timed and you have to regurgitate a LOT of info in a very short period of time. Also, most bar exams also have a timed essay portion, so being able to type quickly is very, VERY helpful. I don't know...maybe since kids are typing stuff out so early in life, it's not seen as a required "life" class.

The most enjoyable was home ec, since I was one of two guys in the class (it was in 7th grade) and I formed great friendships with a lot of the gals in the class. That worked out pretty out pretty good for me through the rest of my school years.

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

I went to an all-boys school, as did my brother, so the stereotype-aspects don't apply here. My brother opted to take a computer science class, rather than typing. In my case, I had a conflict with the CS class, so I took typing.

Years later, we came to realize that I was much more capable on computers than he was because I could type!

 

[Jerry1]

The most useful was the typing class, especially when it came to law school. There are SOOO many books/articles/etc. about how to prepare for law school and a typing class is NEVER mentioned. I think this is ironic because most exams are essay types that are timed and you have to regurgitate a LOT of info in a very short period of time.

I think the other thing that is ironic is that I’ve never seen a class on organization skills. I managed a lot of people and it seemed like they were either organized or they weren’t. Not sure how some became organized, but it seemed to amount to more of a personal trait than a learned skill. I was in the unorganized group. Then one day I read and started to apply the Getting Things Done program and it was great. I didn’t become a disciple but I applied enough of it to make a big impact on my day to day work. Just amazing that nothing like that is ever offered in school.

 

[OneMarcilV]

I grew up a "victim" of the sexist system that said boys take Shop and girls take Home Ec. There WERE no options to do otherwise. Worse, there was a stigma for boys to take typing. Still, I was one of 3 boys and 50+ girls in typing class ca. 1963. How fortunate I was to have insisted to my guidance councillor (the male chauvinist pig ) that SOMEDAY, typing would be important to everyone.

My typing teacher put the boys in the very back of the room. Since our school was old, temperature control was that the radiators radiated, and the teacher opened the windows - at the back of the room. SO the boys learned to type with frozen fingers. I beat most of the girls at speed (and all evidence to the contrary now, heh, heh) accuracy. I got A's and B's. YMMV

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

In before Porky!

 

[Out-to-Lunch]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

Interesting:

About OneMarcilV
Gender: Female

 

[Gumby]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

Fortunately, we all get to choose the life that suits us best. So there's no need to argue about it.

 

[Jerry1]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

I think it worked because one person managed the household and the other person earned the family income. I don’t think it had anything to do with which gender made which contribution to the household.

 

[OneMarcilV]

Interesting:

True we had me and my sister and out parents.

 

[OneMarcilV]

Fortunately, we all get to choose the life that suits us best. So there's no need to argue about it.

True

 

[Aerides]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

My husband is a far better cook than I have ever been. I was the girl on the school math team.

Didn't work perfectly then, obviously, not for everyone, or no one would have sought to change it. I'm very thankful that I had the choice of a career, just as everyone now does, and parents who also supported my choices. Or goodness, what would happen to all those women who didn't marry, or didn't marry men? To the convent I suppose?

 

[OneMarcilV]

When my mum was young her spent time in the kitchen with her mum when her mum was doing the cooking.

Very rare that men did the cooking. My father did the cooking when we had hamburgers cooked outside on the grill.

Both if my grand parents were the same way.

 

[OneMarcilV]

My husband is a far better cook than I have ever been. I was the girl on the school math team.

Didn't work perfectly then, obviously, not for everyone, or no one would have sought to change it. I'm very thankful that I had the choice of a career, just as everyone now does, and parents who also supported my choices. Or goodness, what would happen to all those women who didn't marry, or didn't marry men? To the convent I suppose?

Then in that case there is no choice to get a job as I did.

But if married that is a different story.

The mother should be home taking care if their kids while the father is at work.

 

[EastWest Gal]

We did it the opposite. I went to medical school. DH was a starving musician. He dropped his “career” when our son was born. DH was a better parent. More patience. It worked out well. Many female physicians I know went this route.

I wish we females had more opportunity to take auto repair and other shop classes. Would have been useful in life. I had a high school boyfriend who was a whiz at all things electrical. We took an aptitude test in high school. Right before the circuitry exam, he explained the terminology and the symbols on circuits. I aced it. I probably could have studied engineering. My sister did.

 

[ncbill]

When my mum was young her spent time in the kitchen with her mum when her mum was doing the cooking.

Very rare that men did the cooking. My father did the cooking when we had hamburgers cooked outside on the grill.

Both if my grand parents were the same way.

My spouse does the grilling as well as most the rest of the cooking...I can assemble ingredients in our slow cooker & turn it on.

Mostly because she prefers meat to be cooked thoroughly whereas I prefer it to be passed only once or twice through the flames.

 

[Music Lover]

The guys were put in shop class and the girls were put in home ec when I went to school. I took typing because it was mostly girls but never expected to use it once I graduated. Well, it sure came in handy at work when computers came along and I could type 45-50 words a minute (on a manual typewriter) without looking.

 

[EastWest Gal]

I took typing class during summer school, along with driver's ed. Thank goodness I took those classes. Both paid off in spades. Typing long college papers developed that skill, not to mention writing posts on E-R forum! DS started learning typing in 3rd grade in computer lab-Mario Teaches Typing.

 

[Koolau]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

Interesting take. I take no position on the way things should BE. It was simply my experience, growing up in the 50s and 60s that schools (and to a lesser extent) the empl*yment world attempted to define the roles of males and females. I DO have my opinion(s) on such things but would never enforce them on others (not even on DW - that would end badly) My parents turned the whole thing upside down. BOTH worked (more than) full time. Dad cooked more than did mom as she had bookwork to finish at the small business. Dad did do the maintenance stuff around the house and mom did more of the housework (us kids helping - somewhat).

The business was attached to the house, so minor squabbles, fires (um, literally) and homework questions were a few steps away. It worked about as well as you could hope for, given a non-traditional set up. We did okay and moved from solidly lower middle class to middle class during my childhood - mostly thanks to mom and dad's commitment to us, each other and to their business - which exists to this day with 3rd generation.

I think it's more important to make things work than to have expectations of the way things "should" work. But that's just my opinion as YMMV.

 

[Philliefan33]

Should be that way. The husbands should be the ones that have the jobs to supply mi it’s for their families.

The women are better at house keeping and such.

That is how out it was was we were kids.

Worked perfectly.

Still should.

This kind of thinking is stifling to individuals of either gender. Some women are not suited to being mothers and/or homemakers, some men thrive in that environment. Some families change primary wage earners as situations change.

The world we will a better place when everyone is allowed to follow his/her own path without societal pressure to do what one “should”. JMHO

 

[steveark]

My mom and my wife were both Home Economics teachers in middle schools. Consequently I'm a pretty darned good cook.

 

[bzribee]

I have a unisex name and in the 60's signed up for shop. I remember I wanted to learn how to make frames and use a miter box. As soon as I walked in I was sent to Home Ec and not allowed to take Shop despite my interest. In Home Ec we did sewing (I hated it--my mom sewed all the clothes as long as I pinned and cut them out), baked cookies and our big finale meal was a hot dog, with a horizontal slit sitting in aluminum foil. We put a tiny piece of bell pepper and some Velveeta in the "slit", wrapped and baked the hotdog. The teacher was so excited with the project. Can you tell I wasn't? Any cooking I learned was from my mom and roommates. Most of my current male peers these days are the better cooks in their households. As was true for many of my female friends back then, we resented being the house cleaners while our brothers (younger ones, at least) had few if any chores. We resented being funneled to the "female" activities and even today some of us are not very "domestic". My mom didn't want me to take typing though, as she felt it would funnel me into only secretarial work. My parents encouraged me to be a dr or lawyer, but being uneducated themselves really had no idea what any of it involved. They did put me through college, though, for which I am very very grateful.



As a classroom teacher, I used a local math/newspaper program to teach about investing and the stock market. It was set up as a game and was very popular in my classes for years. I don't recall if we wrote checks but that would've been a good activity to include. I stopped using the game when newspapers no longer used fractions on the stock market pages (part of the activity was teaching conversion from fractions to decimals) and when my district decided that we could only use the textbook for teaching. No "outside" materials were allowed.