Some of you have surely studied Home Economics or Family and Consumer Sciences back at school, classes that taught us the basic skills needed for our daily life. On the courses, girls learned to sew, cook, manage the budget and finances, while young boys learned to build things, use tools, fix things, etc.
According to the Huffington Post:
“Home Economics was there for a few reasons — apparently good ones — if you believed the prevailing thoughts of the times:
- To teach young girls to be good housekeepers and wives (This was apparently very important)
- To teach young girls to cook, sew, clean and know everything about running a household (because it was their God-given role in life, after all)
- To provide young girls with life skills (These apparently were all of the skills that were needed: cooking, cleaning, sewing, and baking).”
On the other hand,
“Shop class, conversely, was based on the following premises:
- That boys would grow up to be men, and men build and fix things (Obviously while their wives cooked, cleaned and sewed at home)
- That “real men” had certain skills — Building, fixing, and making things, usually including drills, hacksaws, and wood (such skills were required because they were the sole means of getting any manual labor or fixing done around the house)
- That while making, building and fixing things, someone else would be doing the heavy lifting at home (Childrearing, cooking, cleaning, and sewing was “women’s work,” after all)”
However, the entire concept of a traditional family has shifted over time, and it has brought both, positive and negative changes.
Now, the current school education school programs lack such lessons. Some believe that those courses are not suitable for the cutting edge educational modules, and schools focus on things like normal center and capability- based learning with constrained subsidizing.
On the other hand, there are also parents who are worried that their children lack the basic skills to survive in the world as an adult.
There is no doubt that English, history, and arithmetic are vital, but Home financial matters served to teach students about the needed skills for cooking, health and helped construct solid associations with accounts.
Nowadays, secondary schools are constrained in explicit home financial aspects courses. Now, understudies can be given the opportunity to choose individualized related courses, for example, Family Studies, Food, and Nutrition, or Health and Safety.
According to NPR’s ‘The Salt’:
“These courses haven’t left totally, yet their quality in schools is diminishing. In 2012, there were just 3.5 million understudies taken a crack at Family Consumer Science auxiliary projects.” which is a 38 percent abatement over 10 years. “
Moreover, Susan Turgeson, President of the Association of Teacher Educators for Family and Consumer Sciences, says:
“Classes may now incorporate subjects, for example, network planting, treating the soil, and even hydroponics-things you never would have found in a 1950’s classroom.”
While some find no sense in revisiting Home Ec and Shop classes again, others believe that it could make a huge difference in the lives of many, and children will learn how to save money and time.
Do you think such courses would be beneficial for understudies? Can such classes contribute to a better society tomorrow?
