Family and Consumer Sciences

[Disneyluvr]

My DD is 13 and in 8th grade and she has to take FACS this year as well. The curriculum is very similar to the OP's. But they also have to have a "baby" for 2 weeks. It's the new computer kind that cries at all times just like a newborn! It records all the info about the baby during that time, how long it cried, if it was shaken, dropped or hit, was it held and hugged. With all the shows about teen moms now a days I think that's a great way to show them it's not so easy. I've already told DD she will be on her own with the kid !

 

[mom3sonstt]

When I was in Jr Hi we had a quarter each of Home Ec, Industrial Arts (woodwork), Art, and Music (not choir - more of a music appreciation type of class). Of those, the only class still available at my school is Art.

Home Ec disappeared one year after my teacher retired. They tried to cut it back and share a teacher with another school, the next year they just eliminated it.
Industrial Arts has kind of come and gone - they have something available there now, I'm not sure what it is - but I do know the kids in that class, in addition to whatever projects they do in the class, also help build the sets for the plays which includes hanging doors, building staircases, and whatever else the script requires. There are two plays a year.
Music - again, when my teacher retired....well, maybe not, we had another one of her former students who took her place initially, and she may have maintained those classes, but we have gone through a ton of Choir and Band directors in the past few years - enough that Band has disappeared. When I was in school we had a High School Choir and Band teacher (2 full-time positions) and a grade school Music teacher (a 3rd full time position - taught the grade schoolers singing and simple instruments). Now there is one Choir director who has to split their time between the grade school and the high school - there may be a part time music teacher for the younger grade schoolers. Band is gone, as is the Music appreciation classes.
Art we still have. But what worries me is that my old Art teacher is retiring at the end of this year (or maybe next year....but soon)

We did have - and still do have a required semester of Consumer's Ed. When I was in school I hated it. We were given an amount of "money" and at the beginning of the semester we had to "buy stocks" and track them throughout the semester and see who made or lost money by the end of the semester. We had other stuff too - but I couldn't tell you what it was. My senior year I needed one more class to fill my schedule so I took Bookkeeping - that class I loved (and it was with the same teacher as Cons Ed) - in that class we had to balance checkbooks, and budgets. Granted it was running a business so we also had to do invoices and other stuff - but that was more useful than buying stocks. My youngest son had Cons Ed last year (my teacher is long gone) and his Cons Ed was more like my bookkeeping - at least as far as doing checkbooks, they had to choose a profession, find the average salary plus whether you would have to take a lot of schooling - in which case you had to budget student loans along with all your other expenses. It was a more worthwhile class than the one I had.

Our old Home Ec room is now the LifeSkills class room - that is not a class option for "regular" students, it is the classroom my middle son is in. It's an alternate classroom for kids with special needs. Instead of learning Algebra, they learn math in the real world - fractions in cooking, percentages for sales or for adding tax. Those kids realize if they have a dollar in their pocket and something costs a dollar that they do not have enough money because they need more for tax. The go shopping at the grocery store every month to buy what they need for their weekly cooking projects. So they have to go through the recipes that they have picked out for that month (they cook every Wednesday) and make a shopping list - they have to understand that if what they are cooking in 4 weeks requires milk that it will probably spoil if they buy it now so they will either move that recipe up earlier in their schedule, or they will ask the teacher to pick some up later - but they have to figure out that it is a problem. They have to check the dates on stuff in the store to see if it will still be good when they need it. They do a lot of other stuff in there that wouldn't hurt some of the "regular" kids to know how to do....

 

[goodfood4ursoul]

Lots of interesting points of view

My mother was a Home Ec. major and masters' in college.
I didn't get any formal training in public school at all.
Neither did my kids.
Guess you could say I got my training at home and the rest on the job.

I was home raising family from 1989 - 2006.
We didn't make much $ but we sure could stretch a dime until it screamed


Went back to work in 2006- I teach Food Stamp families
how to stretch their food dollars and food stamps to last the whole month
how to cook using ingredients and not microwave meals
how to deal with picky eaters
how to plan meals and shop smart in the grocery store
how to read and understand food nutrition labels and use them to help them make wise food choices.
how to choose healthier fast food
the difference between fruit juice and a juice "drink"
how to prevent illness through safe food handling
(how to safely thaw food, why it is important to quickly refrigerate food,
why being clean in the kitchen is important, preventing cross contamination, etc)


I teach kids in schools:
grades 3 +:
about MyPyramid (Smart Foods)
how to choose a smart drink (sugar in drinks, etc)
about the importance of activity/exercise
how to choose a smart snack
how to read food labels

grades 1-2:
the difference between whole grains and other grain foods
where meat comes from and non-animal sources of protein
what they need to know about fruits and veggies (eat lots, eat a rainbow)
the importance of low fat milk foods in their diet.

I won't keep going in more detail to bore you

I teach all ages through hands on activities.
With adults and teens we prepare healthy but yummy recipes
because if seeing is believing, then tasting is convincing

For every dollar spent on educating people in these areas, almost $11 is saved in health care costs by way of behavior change.

I do get frustrated, being human and all that when the people who need our program the most (carts piled high with junk & tv dinners on the first of the month) are not interested in it.
Our program is voluntary, not mandatory.

People must qualify by income or schools must have 50% or more kids on the free/reduced lunch program to participate in our program.

This FREE program is available nation wide, known as SNAP-Ed.
In my state, our program is administered through the Cooperative Extension program of our land grant university.

For those whose income disqualifies them, much of this same info is available free through local Cooperative Extensions to the general public.

If you want your kids to learn these skills and they are not offered
in your local schools, then you can contact your local Cooperative Extension
and ask about 4-H, the program with a 100+ year record
of positive youth programs in this area,
as well as many other areas of interest to youth and families.

That's where my kids learned all this.

There is so much pressure in our area for kids to perform academically,
and our HS has a block schedule with dual enrollement community college
classes so taking a whole semester to do FACS or Lifeskills
seriously inhibits the ability of our students to get their
Associate's Degrees when they graduate from HS.
That's the big push these days, to get your Associate Degree for free while in high school.

But I think we are missing an important part of the picture here.
America is so overweight and so upside down in debt,
and perhaps, just maybe, that might coincide with the mass exodus
of most Home Ec/FACS classes in public schools

These are important life skills that make a difference between
living hopelessly in poverty, and managing resources and education
to improve a family's opportunities for better health and a better life.

Thanks for allowing me to share my experience...

 

[eeyorethegreat]

We used to have Home Ec/FACS My son had it in middle school. My daughter in 7th grade. They loved it. Then came budget cuts... No more FACS at the middle school (there were other cuts but I am trying really hard not to go OT here). FACS was replaced with....NOTHING. So now instead of learning some life skills that I agree no longer happens at home for most children, they get nothing at all but hey it saved a few bucks... I think at the moment FACS of some sort can be taken at the highschool as an elective and for those who need to have the life skills to be able to have a chance at living on their own.

Anyway, for those who have kids who are still lucky enough to have it at least offered to their students appreciate it while it is there because if it gets cut, chances are it will never be reinstated and it won't be replaced with anything. BTW that wasn't directed at anyone here at all just a little rant so to speak due to my frustration with budget cuts at schools here.

 

[herdtoDisney]

I think these classes are a good idea. My two middle boys go/went to a magnet school that focuses on science and math and leaves no room for this...we have taught them at home because I feel it's so important to know not just book smarts, but how to get along in the world. You'd be suprised at the number of college students who have never used a checkbook, don't understand interest or credit, can't even do laundry!

I especially think the financial aspect should be taught-unless in 10-20 years, we want a repeat of the credit/mortgage fiasco of recent years

 

[MomToOne]

My sister is a bankruptcy attorney. Several times a year she goes out to local high schools to teach a quickie class on credit. She shows kids how credit card interest compounds, why payday loans are awful, etc. We were taught these things by my father (who would have been labeled "frugal" by many folks if they were being nice that day; "cheap" if they weren't ) but many kids never are. My sister started doing the class because she was tired of seeing people come into her office with no idea how they had gotten into the mess they were in. Right now we have a bunch of parents who have no clue how/when to use credit responsibly. And since the parents don't know, we can't expect kids to get this taught in the home unfortunately. So we either address it in the schools somehow or need to find another way to reach kids...

 

[C.Ann]

As long as all of the other basic educational classes are being covered - and covered well - I think that's great..

Although we had Home Ec and Wood Shop back in my day, we (myself, my sister, and my 2 brothers) had already learned all of that (and more) from my parents and grandparents - as did my children from me - and as my DGD is learning from her parents and I..

Survival skills are important - regardless of where they are taught or who is doing the teaching..