Wow! I was very surprised to find our New Jersey middle and high school no longer offers these courses? As a female boomer, we were not given the option of Wood Shop, we had to take Home Economics; it was nice as years passed to see that had changed. Now, I'm hearing these courses are a thing of the past, like Driver's Education? If a course doesn't have a keyboard, is it history?

Ohhh...don't even MENTION driver's ed! Out in New Mexico (I'm orig from NJ, BTW), they do not know that passing on a double yellow line is ILLEGAL!

And yeah, too bad home ec and shop are not there any longer. No wonder the world is going to pot! They are not taught basic homemaking skills!!

The problem is, there is so much more to learn than there was when we were in school. And so little time. Schools, I believe, try to do the best they can with the time they are given.

Seems like it has been awhile that home ec and shop are no longer required classes.

My kids are in their 30s and though I know my son took a shop class in junior high and made a few things we still have - a sturdy wooden stool and a parquet chess board among them - but I'm not sure whether or not my daughter ever took a home ec class. I'd lean toward saying she did not...

Which would more than explain why they discovered in college that they were the only one of their dorm acquaintances who had ever shopped for food, knew how to make at least a half dozen basic meals, had any idea how to select a good cut of meat create a healthy balanced meal, read food labels, etc.

And let's not even begin to cover laundry and clothing maintenance! (Wash clothes or sew on a button? OMG!)

Of course, when I made each of them learn this stuff in grade school and high school the training was often accompanied by a lot of grumbling and complaint... though they usually enjoyed the cooking part.

As soon as they had a driver's license, I took them to the grocery store a few times to teach them these things - then assigned them the task of food shopping. I still made the list, but they did the actual shopping and check writing. (I did this because it's what my mother did with me and my sibs, and it seemed to make sense.)

I was finally vindicated, but not until they got to college and discovered the value in the fact that they knew how to shop for food while their peers did not.

IMHO, if schools are no longer having time to teach these subjects, we need to be sure people learn them at home. But there may be a generation or two of parents who don't know how to do this - so would have no idea how to train on it...

With school budgets being cut left and right, they have to focus on the basic academic classes as there's no money for anything else. Music and art are usually the first things to go, even though research shows these subjects are crucial. I don't remember if my kids had wood shop/home ec options in school - they are both late 30s - but they learned the basics of cooking and sewing and cleaning at home. (It was my ex that taught them - I'm hopeless when it comes to that kind of stuff - I guess I'm just not domesticated; and I'm fine with that!)

lindasusan,
I remember 1st hubby taking Wood Shop; I still have the cutting board he made way back when; it's in the shape of a pig!

Di,
Drivers here don't know a double yellow line means not to pass, either; or, else they just don't care.

Anne,
The cooking I know how to do I learned from grandma and other lady friends. Mom didn't do much cooking.

yonuh,
It's sad that the arts are the first things cut from the school programs. The Arts are such a wonderful way of expressing human emotions and at the same time, they're an excellent avenue for emotional release!