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Post by Tamhugh on Feb 25, 2023 18:06:38 GMT
FCS is a requirement to graduate in our school district. My kids took creative foods but there are a lot of different options. They can take child development, independent living, personal financial management or a few other options. They also take a marking period of FCS and one of shop every year of middle school.
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Post by cecilia on Feb 25, 2023 19:06:46 GMT
I have no idea what FACS is, but DS's middle school required 8th graders to take "Teen Survival" (I think that was the name). Basic cooking and other home skills, basic finance, interpersonal relationships, etc. Good solid life skills stuff. He seemed to think it was pretty fun and they learned some useful skills. I had take something similar in 8th, only ours was split into semester classes and called personal living skills/career exploration or something like that. I had FACS in high school. I had already learned a lot of it via 4H so it was easy for me.
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Post by belgravia on Feb 25, 2023 19:34:35 GMT
My daughter attended a private school and these types of classes weren’t offered. There is a class called CALM (career and life management) that is mandatory to graduate where they learn about writing a resume, preparing a budget, stuff like that.
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Post by SockMonkey on Feb 25, 2023 20:02:29 GMT
Yes, we have a required Consumer Education course for graduation, which covers things like career exploration, job interview skills, taxes, and personal finance.
We also offer Culinary Arts (3 levels), Child Development (2 levels, and we run a preschool within our school that the kids teach), Fashion/Interior Design, and Human Relations.
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Post by birukitty on Feb 25, 2023 21:44:57 GMT
I can't answer this question because my only child is in his early thirties and never attended public school-he went to private school and then was homeschooled.
When I was in junior high I went to a Fairfax County school in Northern Va in the early 1970's that taught Home Ec. and Shop. What I thought was great about it was that for one year they had the boys and girls switch so that the boys took Home Ec. and the girls took Shop. I didn't care for the automotive part of the year, but I loved the wood working section. I'm grateful for that experience. I learned a lot of great skills that I still use today.
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Post by AussieMeg on Feb 25, 2023 22:53:40 GMT
Both of my kids did Food Technology (what we would have called Home Economics) in high school. It was offered as one of the elective classed in either Year 7 or 8. You had to get in early if you wanted to do Food Tech because it was very popular. I just asked my DS's girlfriend and she said that she also did Textiles (which is what we called Sewing). She has just finished Year 12, so she did those classes recently. Both of my kids also did Woodwork. I still have the chopping board that DD made in Year 8. Funnily enough, the one that DS made fell apart - and he is now an apprentice carpenter! One class that I don't think is offered anymore, but really should be, is typing. Almost everyone uses a keyboard of some kind these days.
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Post by katlady on Feb 26, 2023 1:49:35 GMT
I do want to say that in the 6th grade we had a woodworking project for class. This was still elementary school, so not a separate class. I don’t know if they still do it, but the LAUSD used to have an annual boat regatta. All the 6th graders made a wooden boat, with sails and rudder, and then we raced them at the annual regatta. It was held at a park, I think on a weekend, so it was like a big school/family picnic. We had to cut the boat body, sand it, glue layers together, varnish it, etc. It was a big project, but great for learning basics of woodworking.
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Feb 26, 2023 2:13:18 GMT
Our high school didn’t have it. Not when I was growing up and not for my kids. I have mixed feelings about people saying those classes should be required or are “more useful” than other courses. I mean, I get it. Certainly we all have to eat every day and cooking is a basic skill everyone should have. But I also kind of think the purpose of school is to teach us how to think and how to be more thoughtful humans and citizens, not how to do life. I’m not sure basic life skills should be the purpose of going to school when schools are so stretched already. I learned some very basic cooking/baking growing up. Most of what I know, though, was learned from Food Network back when they had cooking shows, and other places like YouTube. I could not have had a musical experience like I had in my choir classes after the fact, on TV, so to me it was more important to take stuff in school that I couldn’t get elsewhere. I also worry about a push from certain factions to value homemaking skills, particularly for women, over learning accurate science and history. And I worry about the anti-intellectualism we see now saying that practical, job-related skills are the only things worth learning. So anyway. My two cents. Those are good points. I believe that either home ec or shop was required when I was in high school. I didn’t really like either. The home ec class could have been the most practical but I either didn’t appreciate it at the time oe what we learned wasn’t really that useful. I know we had to sew some piece of clothing and we also learned how to boil various vegetables. My mom isn’t much of a cook and most of what I have learned about cooking was learned from TV, internet, cookbooks after I finished college. My kids all had at least a quarter of culinary arts in junior high and high school and they liked it. My senior is taking a construction class now and they are making a house for habitat for humanity. He is going to college and has time for that. He really likes the class. I think these classes can be useful, but I can also see merge’s point about the implication that these are the *only* useful classes and that schools aren’t teaching kids for real life. That is usually the tone that is used in those posts.
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Post by 950nancy on Feb 26, 2023 3:31:40 GMT
Both of our high schools have a version of the old Home Ec. I often chuckle at the people who say we need XXX on social media. Those people don't have kids in school and sometimes they just don't realize what the schools offer. Or if their kid didn't do something then it wasn't offered. Apparently cursive is no longer taught in any school either. Financial literacy is also no longer taught in any grade. As a parent, I taught my kids so many things and then the school just reinforced the concepts. I know that isn't the case for many kids though.
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Post by ntsf on Feb 26, 2023 5:16:49 GMT
my kids are in their early 30's and they did not have any home ec/shop classes. they had some personal finance I think, and health class.
they learned that stuff from me. or didn't I took home ec in the 70's.. hated it, already was helping to cook meals for 60 people, already could sew, so in high school, took girls' wood shop. made some pieces out of teak for our sailboat and some boxes.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 26, 2023 6:52:57 GMT
Both of my kids did Food Technology (what we would have called Home Economics) in high school. It was offered as one of the elective classed in either Year 7 or 8. You had to get in early if you wanted to do Food Tech because it was very popular. I just asked my DS's girlfriend and she said that she also did Textiles (which is what we called Sewing). She has just finished Year 12, so she did those classes recently. Both of my kids also did Woodwork. I still have the chopping board that DD made in Year 8. Funnily enough, the one that DS made fell apart - and he is now an apprentice carpenter! One class that I don't think is offered anymore, but really should be, is typing. Almost everyone uses a keyboard of some kind these days. They don’t teach typing anymore per se, but here in my area they do start the kids on keyboarding as early as first grade so they do get exposure to it early on. The elementary classrooms all have 1:1 iPads and the older kids are issued Chromebooks in the later grades. A good percentage of my kid’s assignments are all done on the Chromebook, so they all end up learning to type by default.
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caangel
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Posts: 5,478
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Jun 26, 2014 16:42:12 GMT
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Post by caangel on Feb 26, 2023 15:48:53 GMT
With COVID we were 1:1 Chromebooks k-12, prior to that k-2 was 1:3 Ipads. We also have keyboarding in 7/8th as an optional elective and the district has a paid keyboarding app for elementary students that is accessable to any student.
And students are still taught cursive in 3rd grade. It is not strongly emphasized in other grades but it is still taught.
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Post by Merge on Feb 26, 2023 16:42:59 GMT
Both of my kids did Food Technology (what we would have called Home Economics) in high school. It was offered as one of the elective classed in either Year 7 or 8. You had to get in early if you wanted to do Food Tech because it was very popular. I just asked my DS's girlfriend and she said that she also did Textiles (which is what we called Sewing). She has just finished Year 12, so she did those classes recently. Both of my kids also did Woodwork. I still have the chopping board that DD made in Year 8. Funnily enough, the one that DS made fell apart - and he is now an apprentice carpenter! One class that I don't think is offered anymore, but really should be, is typing. Almost everyone uses a keyboard of some kind these days. They don’t teach typing anymore per se, but here in my area they do start the kids on keyboarding as early as first grade so they do get exposure to it early on. The elementary classrooms all have 1:1 iPads and the older kids are issued Chromebooks in the later grades. A good percentage of my kid’s assignments are all done on the Chromebook, so they all end up learning to type by default. IMO the sort of two-finger typing they mostly develop that way is not as efficient or effective as learning touch-typing the way we did when I was in school.
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Post by epeanymous on Feb 26, 2023 18:07:56 GMT
I don't think our schools generally have those classes. FWIW, when they were offered in my schools in the 1980s, the "skills" they taught were some combo of outdated and overly basic--i remember taking one class in middle school where I completed all of the projects I needed to get an A in the first week of the trimester.
ETA: one of life's great ironies is that my mother was a "home ec" person and in the Future Homemakers of America, taking all of those classes in the 1950s when these things supposedly were at their apex. I literally never saw a vegetable growing up that didn't come out of a can, and I went vegetarian in part because her cooking was so terrible it was an excuse not to eat it; she couldn't sew or do anything like that. I hate cooking but am much better at it than she is, and I can sew, knit, etc. You want to know why? Because I learned how to learn, and I can teach myself anything; my mother is barely functionally literate and can't teach herself at all. I really worry, as we are seeing a resurgence of "skills" and "practical education" type advocacy that we're setting up people to be like my mother.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 26, 2023 19:45:16 GMT
They don’t teach typing anymore per se, but here in my area they do start the kids on keyboarding as early as first grade so they do get exposure to it early on. The elementary classrooms all have 1:1 iPads and the older kids are issued Chromebooks in the later grades. A good percentage of my kid’s assignments are all done on the Chromebook, so they all end up learning to type by default. IMO the sort of two-finger typing they mostly develop that way is not as efficient or effective as learning touch-typing the way we did when I was in school. I agree, but they’re little kids when they start so that’s about what I would expect. My 7th grader types pretty well now for never having taken a touch typing course. She’s far better than DH who literally hunts and pecks with two fingers and a thumb. It’s painful to watch him try to type anything only for it to be filled with typos and misspelled words that need to be fixed. I mostly use my iPad these days for most things and typing on it is a whole different thing than typing on a traditional keyboard. I definitely don’t use all of my fingers on the iPad like I do with a laptop or desktop keyboard. It won’t be long before everything is dictated anyway.
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RosieKat
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Jun 25, 2014 19:28:04 GMT
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Post by RosieKat on Feb 26, 2023 19:47:33 GMT
Our HS is the mega college prep, IB school in our district, so they don't offer things like this. (After all, college kids and grads don't need to eat or anything, right?) The few related options are all ones that have an academic slant, such as personal finance or nutrition.
The MS is one of the feeder schools and offers foreign languages instead. Granted, that's a hard one for me to disagree with.
But I think in HS, at least, there should be even a semester required, more ideally. Setting a budget, the basics of cooking, home and car maintenance requirements, the basics of housecleaning (since the kids don't seem to know even this anymore). Our school claims to offer monthly community classes on this, yet I've never seen a single thing about them in the nearly two years DD has been there. If they are being offered, they sure are well hidden.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 26, 2023 20:37:09 GMT
Our HS is the mega college prep, IB school in our district, so they don't offer things like this. (After all, college kids and grads don't need to eat or anything, right?) The few related options are all ones that have an academic slant, such as personal finance or nutrition. The MS is one of the feeder schools and offers foreign languages instead. Granted, that's a hard one for me to disagree with. But I think in HS, at least, there should be even a semester required, more ideally. Setting a budget, the basics of cooking, home and car maintenance requirements, the basics of housecleaning (since the kids don't seem to know even this anymore). Our school claims to offer monthly community classes on this, yet I've never seen a single thing about them in the nearly two years DD has been there. If they are being offered, they sure are well hidden.But really, aren’t all of these basic life skills that can and should be taught at home? Kids don’t know this stuff only because the parents don’t teach it (and quite possibly that is because some don’t really know themselves). These are all things we’ve been gradually working on with our kid since she was old enough to follow basic instructions and safety rules. Overall I think too many parents keep their younger kids so busy with various sports and other organized activities throughout the year. There isn’t enough down time at home to teach them this stuff early enough to master it before they’re out on their own. IMO it really does a disservice to kids for them to not be functional adults on at least the most basic level by the time they leave for college or independent life, and that goes for both boys and girls.
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gina
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Posts: 3,228
Jun 26, 2014 1:59:16 GMT
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Post by gina on Feb 27, 2023 0:44:26 GMT
We have some FACS electives at the middle and HS levels but they no longer include cooking. They actually had the ovens taken out of the HS classes so when Summer camps are run, if they include cooking (they've done Chopped Jr. baking classes, etc) they have to host those at the middle school. So dumb. I loved Home Ec when I was in school and its part of the reason I went to college for fashion/apparel design!
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mamallama
Full Member
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Sept 14, 2018 7:30:33 GMT
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Post by mamallama on Feb 27, 2023 7:46:10 GMT
Our high schools do. And they have FCCLA as an extracurricular that they do a project for them go to districts, state and even nationals. We have quite a few different options. Teen living, adult living, food and nutrition, etc. We also have flower design classes and horticulture. Our school has a green house and they grow a ton of vegetable and flower plants to sell every year. We have welding and construction as well. The advanced construction students build small sheds and sell them. They are always booked out for orders. We also have FFA. It is a rural community so that might make a difference.
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Post by auntkelly on Feb 27, 2023 16:47:32 GMT
I have a friend who teaches Home Ec at a small rural school and I just love seeing her posts on FB. She is obviously a very popular teacher and she is very creative and loves her students. Every year around Thanksgiving, her students make pies from scratch. It's always so fun to see great big football players proudly displaying their pies w/ intricate lattice patterned crusts. I always smile and think that in fifty years those boys' grandkids will be saying "Grandpa, please bring your famous cherry pie w/ the fancy crust to Thanksgiving this year!"
I think a good teacher could teach kids to do just about anything and incorporate all kinds of valuable knowledge and skills into that lesson. I took home ec in junior high and I remember planning a meal w/ a small group which we made and then ate together. We learned about designating duties, working in a small space w/ other people, cleaning up after ourselves, planning our time, etc. We had to incorporate our math skills in budgeting our meal and calculating measuring amounts and serving sizes. We employed our artistic skills in decorating the table. Plus, we had a lot of fun and were really proud of ourselves!
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SweetieBsMom
Pearl Clutcher
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Jun 25, 2014 19:55:12 GMT
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Post by SweetieBsMom on Feb 27, 2023 17:29:41 GMT
A million years ago when I was in HS, we didn't have a lot of electives....had to take Latin and Religion (all girls catholic HS) all 4 years. And we had to take typing JR. & SR. years. So we didn't have the option (I think we got 1 elective each year). My DS, who just graduated, didn't have Home Ec either BUT he did a lot with his step up program his extra year at the HS. I think home ec and basic finance should be required courses. And by basic finance: how to balance a checkbook, how to do basic taxes (and understand the taxes coming out of your paycheck) and I would go so far to have a basic course on this is a 401(k) and this is why you need one, etc.
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Post by workingclassdog on Feb 27, 2023 20:50:43 GMT
I'm not sure of some of the terminology used.. but there are some sort of Home Ec. classes in our high school. I'm not sure of exactly what.. my daughter is just a Freshman so not many electives yet. I know there are cooking classes.
Back in my day..lol.. there were lots of them.. cooking, marriage and family, self development, etc. I took them all. Not that it helped me any haha they were just easy classes for me. In fact, I just came across some newspaper clippings.. we did a fake wedding and I was one of the bridesmaids, guess it got into the school newspaper.
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Post by elaine on Feb 28, 2023 11:22:29 GMT
With COVID we were 1:1 Chromebooks k-12, prior to that k-2 was 1:3 Ipads. We also have keyboarding in 7/8th as an optional elective and the district has a paid keyboarding app for elementary students that is accessable to any student. And students are still taught cursive in 3rd grade. It is not strongly emphasized in other grades but it is still taught. I have to chime in to say that although our district does have FACS classes, and also a financial skills course that all students have to take to graduate high school, we do not teach cursive in 3rd grade any more. I am a 3rd grade teacher, so confident about this one. Cursive just isn’t taught in our district anymore. I understand that. Writing in cursive, beyond a signature (but really, more and more signatures are digital these days), just isn’t a daily needed skill for this generation. All of our students are issued a laptop starting in kindergarten. In K-2 the computers are stored at school. Starting in 3rd grade, they bring them home nightly. I do wish we had keyboarding lessons starting in 3rd - it would be more useful than cursive. That said, I can’t imagine where we would shoehorn them in - the curriculum is packed solid as it is.
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used2scrap
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Jan 29, 2016 3:02:55 GMT
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Post by used2scrap on Feb 28, 2023 11:32:14 GMT
It’s not home ec per se, but my middle schooler has had cooking courses in both 7th and 8th grade. This week he brought home a slider and choc dipped strawberries he made. His school also has a period that focuses on soft skills; interviewing, life goals, time management etc. There is also wood working offered.
What they don’t have is music but I believe the high school is working on piano and guitar courses.
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Post by monklady123 on Feb 28, 2023 15:15:57 GMT
With COVID we were 1:1 Chromebooks k-12, prior to that k-2 was 1:3 Ipads. We also have keyboarding in 7/8th as an optional elective and the district has a paid keyboarding app for elementary students that is accessable to any student. And students are still taught cursive in 3rd grade. It is not strongly emphasized in other grades but it is still taught. I have to chime in to say that although our district does have FACS classes, and also a financial skills course that all students have to take to graduate high school, we do not teach cursive in 3rd grade any more. I am a 3rd grade teacher, so confident about this one. Cursive just isn’t taught in our district anymore. I understand that. Writing in cursive, beyond a signature (but really, more and more signatures are digital these days), just isn’t a daily needed skill for this generation. All of our students are issued a laptop starting in kindergarten. In K-2 the computers are stored at school. Starting in 3rd grade, they bring them home nightly. I do wish we had keyboarding lessons starting in 3rd - it would be more useful than cursive. That said, I can’t imagine where we would shoehorn them in - the curriculum is packed solid as it is. They used to teach cursive in 3rd here in my county, but I think they stopped a few years ago. As you said, so much else to get into the curriculum. Every once in awhile I see a post on FB from someone who says "schools these days!" followed by a rant about how schools don't say the Pledge of Allegiance, and how they don't teach cursive. As if cursive is the test of a true American or something... But the thing about cursive is that it's pretty easy to teach yourself if you want to learn. The pro-cursive argument often is "how will these young people be able to read historical documents?" -- Well, my ds, who must have learned cursive briefly along the way, couldn't read it at all when he started college. Then he arrived at upper level history classes and lo and behold there were historical documents to read in museums. Well guess what? He taught himself in about two days. Problem solved. He doesn't need to know how to write it, just read it.
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Post by monklady123 on Feb 28, 2023 15:30:03 GMT
Our middle and high schools do offer cooking, wood working, etc., although I think they're all just one module in a semester-long class. There's also personal finance somewhere along the way and I think everyone is required to take that. That one includes budgeting and everyone, no matter where they end up after high school, should know how to balance their income with their expenses. I remember a group project (where they were allowed to choose their own group members, so dd was happy about that...normally we hate group projects in this house ) where they were given a certain amount of money and then had to figure out rent, car payments, a food budget, etc. I think it was an eye-opener for most kids. Personally I am happy if these classes are available to anyone who wants to take them. My district has a separate building that has classes for students from any of the four high schools (transportation provided) in fashion design, cooking, electronics, child development, computers, plumbing, etc., etc. Less intensive versions of some are also offered at the individual schools, along with various types of art and music classes. I understand what Merge was saying, and living in a state (Virginia) that now has a Republican governor it's something to keep an eye on. But these classes, especially the ones at our stand-alone center, can be so good for kids who may not be heading to college for one reason or another, or who just may struggle with academics. I remember one little girl years ago in kindergarten at the school where I sub. She couldn't sit in her chair for more than ten seconds (she'd just fall on the floor crying), couldn't/wouldn't hold a pencil or scissors, was at the very bottom of the class in academics (which makes me sad to use the word "academics" and "kindergarten" in the same paragraph, but sadly that's the way our schools are now... ) -- Anyway, she struggled. Then one day I was subbing in her class and they had art. I went along and stayed to help the art teacher. I was amazed to see this little girl sit on her stool for almost an hour without moving. Never fell off it once, never cried. She had no trouble holding her paint brush/crayons/scissors (I forget exactly what they were doing). And she produced the most amazing art. The following year she was tested and identified with various learning disabilities. She continued to struggle in school academically, although with various support services she did well. And her art was fabulous. Still is, and she's finishing middle school this year. My long-winded way of saying that any class that's not hard-core academic could be a lifesaver for a kid who struggles otherwise. And, for a kid who IS in hard-core academics they could be just plain fun, and who doesn't need some fun in their day? lol
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Post by iamkristinl16 on Feb 28, 2023 16:22:47 GMT
They don’t teach typing anymore per se, but here in my area they do start the kids on keyboarding as early as first grade so they do get exposure to it early on. The elementary classrooms all have 1:1 iPads and the older kids are issued Chromebooks in the later grades. A good percentage of my kid’s assignments are all done on the Chromebook, so they all end up learning to type by default. IMO the sort of two-finger typing they mostly develop that way is not as efficient or effective as learning touch-typing the way we did when I was in school. I agree. My kids are always amazed at how fast I can type. Seems that with technology these days they should also be good at it but that isn’t the case.
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casii
Drama Llama
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Jun 29, 2014 14:40:44 GMT
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Post by casii on Feb 28, 2023 17:30:07 GMT
My kids had Life Skills class in middle school. They learned everything from how to do their own laundry, folk & put away clothes (we were asked to check their work at home, lol), simple introductions to finances and personal banking, sewing, cooking and cleaning with homemade items. In HS, I think it was an option. When I was in school, home ec was an elective and it was tradition to have a senior boys home ec class. The teacher enjoyed having the class make spaghetti on the same day they watched a childbirth video. Apparently it was good birth control.
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Post by huskermom98 on Mar 1, 2023 0:41:24 GMT
Just tonight I was in the "foods" room at my boys' high school and I was quite impressed with the setup! I need to encourage my youngest to take whatever class uses that room because he sometimes likes to cook/bake. My oldest took some sort of Home Ec class in middle school, but didn't in high school. Both boys took/is taking an "intro to woods" class where they made a small table and a cabinet.
The high school also has a few other home ec & industrial arts classes available, but the district also offers a central school that has a lot of career-related classes such as culinary arts, robotics, automotive, agriculture, fashion design, and even aviation (the academic part of pilot school and also aviation mechanics) that students can attend in addition to classes at their home school.
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Post by elaine on Mar 1, 2023 1:26:45 GMT
I have to chime in to say that although our district does have FACS classes, and also a financial skills course that all students have to take to graduate high school, we do not teach cursive in 3rd grade any more. I am a 3rd grade teacher, so confident about this one. Cursive just isn’t taught in our district anymore. I understand that. Writing in cursive, beyond a signature (but really, more and more signatures are digital these days), just isn’t a daily needed skill for this generation. All of our students are issued a laptop starting in kindergarten. In K-2 the computers are stored at school. Starting in 3rd grade, they bring them home nightly. I do wish we had keyboarding lessons starting in 3rd - it would be more useful than cursive. That said, I can’t imagine where we would shoehorn them in - the curriculum is packed solid as it is. They used to teach cursive in 3rd here in my county, but I think they stopped a few years ago. As you said, so much else to get into the curriculum. Every once in awhile I see a post on FB from someone who says "schools these days!" followed by a rant about how schools don't say the Pledge of Allegiance, and how they don't teach cursive. As if cursive is the test of a true American or something... But the thing about cursive is that it's pretty easy to teach yourself if you want to learn. The pro-cursive argument often is "how will these young people be able to read historical documents?" -- Well, my ds, who must have learned cursive briefly along the way, couldn't read it at all when he started college. Then he arrived at upper level history classes and lo and behold there were historical documents to read in museums. Well guess what? He taught himself in about two days. Problem solved. He doesn't need to know how to write it, just read it. I originally included something along these lines in my original response, but edited it down before hitting “create post” so that it wouldn’t be too wordy. Many kids will only ever need to read an occasional document written in cursive with the overwhelming majority never needing to write in it beyond their own signature - and, as I mentioned before, many signatures are digital these days and that percentage will only grow.
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