"Did Your School Let Boys Take Home Ec?"

[EmilyRyan]

Took Home Ec when I was in 8th grade and loved learning how to cook and use a sewing machine

[lisarenee]

I think that a year of life skills would be useful to a lot of kids. Everybody eats, so basic shopping and cooking would be useful. Everybody should also have basic skills relating to transportation, budgeting, dealing with people, applying for jobs, and so forth. And, of course, the inevitable health class, which tends to have only a few basic messages: don't drive fast, don't smoke, don't drink, and do use a condom!

We had a Life Skills class in High School, but it wasn't very useful. They taught things like how to write a check/balance a checkbook (no longer relevant thanks to internet banking and anyone with basic math skills should be able to do that without having to be taught), obvious job interview tips like dress nice, and other pointless, obvious, or now irrelevant stuff.