Okay, misleading subject line; I wasn't asked this question, but it was a near thing. Three of us were talking about education, and one guy said something about a home ec class he had taken, and a somewhat older guy said that his school didn't let boys take home ec. I must have had a deer-in-the-headlights look on my face, but nobody asked me what I'd taken in junior high. For a minute, I thought that they were going to. These guys don't know that I'm trans, and I want to keep it that way.
I had wanted to take wood shop, but my counselor told me that shop was not an option for girls. I didn't know enough to call her on it, so I took a hideous sewing class with a bunch of hideous "mean girls" and hated pretty much every minute of it. Damn that counselor. She lied to me. Title IX guaranteed me equal rights to education, and she freaking lied to me--or the school did. I still get pissed off when I think about it. And I wish I hadn't been so meek about it, but that's how most girls were raised in my day.
Back to the present...nobody who knows me would ever believe that I took a sewing class voluntarily, so my mind was racing while my buddies talked about junior high. I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer under any circumstances, so I discreetly steered the subject in a different direction. Fortunately, nobody noticed.
Narrow escape. And I still don't know what I would have said if I'd been asked.
I have almost stepped in the same cow pie when I was talking about some of the things I did when I was younger. Because I did them as a boy scout, I had to edit the group I did it with. Most of my scouting activities remain locked up tight but a few could have been done with a number of other groups.
As for wood shop, you missed a lot of fun and if you would like to make up for it, there are places you can join as an adult where you can have access to a full wood working shop. Wood is so much easer to work with than metal and my mother still has some of the work I did nearly 50 years ago.
When I was in Junior High School, both Boys and Girls were required to take at least a semester of home-ec and one in shop. I don't ever recall seeing something said if a boy or a girl took shop or home ec beyond that in high school or Junior High. Sorry that they turned you away from taking shop then. I would have gladly given up my required time in shop to anyone who wanted it. Hugs
Mariah
Shop and Home Ec were required for all students in Junior High (full year all 3 years) and one semester of each was required in high school. I took an extra year of shop (as a female). Shop in junior high consisted of drafting, wood working, metal working, plastics and ceramics. Home Ec was cooking and sewing. In high school, you specialized more. I did cooking for my mandatory home Ec class and drafting, photography/print making and wood working in shop.
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Quote from: Arch on April 03, 2016, 10:51:59 PM
Back to the present...nobody who knows me would ever believe that I took a sewing class voluntarily
One of my good friends in high school ( I know you said jr high but I dont remember there being electives there) actually took a crochet class. He was cis, straight, and fairly masculine in interests and presentation. I always admired him for not giving a hoot. He would hang out at lunch while crocheting or knitting. I don't think anyone gave him a hard time about it. Then again he was the sort of person most people wouldn't mess with. He looked tougher than he actually was.
I was more of a theater, creative writing, video, art, and astronomy sort of guy. Took a lot of geeky non gendered electives. Though I would have also tried wood shop if that were an option at my school.
All the schools I went to didn't care what gender you were. I'm pretty sure there were a decent amount of guys in home ec from what I've heard, whether or not they chose it. It may have been one of those classes they stuck you in if you didn't take something else. That or floral arrangements.
Quote from: WanderingFace on April 03, 2016, 11:25:12 PM
One of my good friends in high school ( I know you said jr high but I dont remember there being electives there) actually took a crochet class. He was cis, straight, and fairly masculine in interests and presentation. I always admired him for not giving a hoot. He would hang out at lunch while crocheting or knitting. I don't think anyone gave him a hard time about it. Then again he was the sort of person most people wouldn't mess with. He looked tougher than he actually was.
I was more of a theater, creative writing, video, art, and astronomy sort of guy. Took a lot of geeky non gendered electives. Though I would have also tried wood shop if that were an option at my school.
All the schools I went to didn't care what gender you were. I'm pretty sure there were a decent amount of guys in home ec from what I've heard, whether or not they chose it. It may have been one of those classes they stuck you in if you didn't take something else. That or floral arrangements.
My husband's best friend (hetero cisman) knit while on a combat tour in Afghanistan... he also sews.
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I took all the home ec classes for I didn't like being around boys period for they all showed their true nature in the end with me. Besides I love cooking and pretty good at it. The other home e.g. classes I did all right in the one thing about home ec it was an elective and not many boys took those classes.
I went to an all boys school, home ec wasn't even a subject for anyone! That was from 1978-83... it might be different now but in those days it was wood/metal work only!
I took auto shop, and there was an even gender split in my class. Yay inner-city schools!
You did a nice side step Arch!
I would have loved to do either EC or woodwork thingy classes. But in my school there was none of them. To be honest something practical, of any sort, would have been great.
If you think about it school should teach life skills. We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and people have no idea how to cook a basic meal. Both males, females of whatever background should leave school with the ability to wash themselves, care for their clothes, cook a meal, clean their home, maintain a budget (or at least know what one is) and to not be socially awkward.
Owning up to the fact that you were taught such skills should be a matter of pride and not one of shame.
Quote from: WanderingFace on April 03, 2016, 11:25:12 PM
One of my good friends in high school ( I know you said jr high but I dont remember there being electives there)
My junior high actually required girls to take both cooking and sewing. When my mother came with me to register for seventh grade, the counselor (same one) told me that I could completely SKIP both cooking AND sewing because I had signed up for a foreign language. I was stoked.
A year later, the counselor chided me for not taking either cooking or sewing in seventh grade. When I repeated what she had said earlier, she denied it (uh, no, my mother was there, too) and told me that I had to take at least one semester of home ec. She also had neglected to tell me that one semester of science was a seventh-grade requirement, and she dressed me down for not taking it in seventh grade!
Because of this counselor's incompetence, I wound up in summer school because I had nowhere to put the seventh-grade science class in my eighth-grade schedule. I did feel triumphant years later in college when I ignored similarly bad advice from another counselor; I didn't fight her but just did what I was going to do anyway. Worked like a charm because, well, she was wrong.
Fortunately for me, another girl was even less popular than I in that sewing class. Fortunately for her, she was rather dim and never realized that the other girls were making fun of her. I used to grit my teeth when they started in . . . "Oh, SaMANtha, what a cute TOP! Wherever did you GET it?" And then, behind her back, the snickers.
They buttered up the teacher in exactly the same way, and she never seemed to catch on, either.
Of course, the boys would go after an unpopular kid and snap him with a wet towel. That wasn't much fun, either, I'm sure.
This is a subject that has annoyed me for decades. I also wanted to do woodwork or metalwork (both of which were on offer at my High School), but I grew up in Apartheid South Africa which was a very strictly segregated society along many lines, including gender. If they had you down as female, you *had* to do Home Economics; if they had you down as male you *had* to do woodwork or metalwork. There were no exceptions. It wasn't even an option for me.
My elder brother got to do woodwork and made a reasonably decent occasional table... and unlike me he's utterly useless with practical skills, so he's never used the skills he learned in that class. That class was taught by a very eccentric German teacher with a great sense of humour; I would've loved that class & I would've enjoyed putting my practical skills to use. But instead, I had to learn how to cook, knit and sew so that I could be a good little housewife - all taught by a ridiculous Afrikaner teacher who told us that after work she'd get home and make sure everything would be perfect for her husband in time for his arrival back home from his work. Because even if a woman has a University degree and a full-time career as a teacher of High School Biology & Home Economics, her primary purpose is to make sure the house and herself are always immaculate for her man when he comes home, because as the 'man of the house' he's so much more important than her and his needs must always come first. She'd even bath, change clothes and re-apply her make-up after work to prettify herself for her husband.
Boy, how I despised that woman!
I don't know what else you could have done other than to divert the conversation, but I can say this: things have changed for the better. My kids were allowed to do *any* subject at school, so that horrible gender segregation that made our lives such a misery is mostly gone. Certainly here in the UK, most kids now dabble in all of these subjects so it wouldn't be weird for a guy in his 20s or early 30s in the UK to talk about having done sewing or cooking in school. Thank goodness.
Hearing about all your experiences I'm glad times have changed. I was born in 94 so in secondary school both genders had to do food technology (basically learning how to cook professionally and following certain requirements on what to cook). In our year 8 class we even had to do sewing (no idea why; we were never asked to do it again). Plus both genders could do wood work which was a requirement upto choosing what subjects to study for your GCSES (which I hated with a passion and would have much rather go back to the 50s and do home economics)
Quote from: Arch on April 03, 2016, 10:51:59 PM
Back to the present...nobody who knows me would ever believe that I took a sewing class voluntarily, so my mind was racing while my buddies talked about junior high. I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer under any circumstances, so I discreetly steered the subject in a different direction. Fortunately, nobody noticed.
Narrow escape. And I still don't know what I would have said if I'd been asked.
You could always say that you were considering becoming a tailor.
I'm an ftm and before I transitioned I had to take either shop or home ec. I took shop and loved it. There were a few boys that took home ec instead. I was treated very well and I was very good at that course. My mom was very impressed at the things I made and didn't put me down for it. I even made her a clip board for work. Very good memories.
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When I was in high school I was like a free for all when it came to year 11 and 12 elective selection. You could choose to do whatever you wanted. I knew two guys who did sewing and two others who joined hospitality.
I did woodwork, took 3 years to make a coffee table! It would have been useful if I learned anything but the teacher had a speech impediment and the mean kids spent every lesson teasing him. Kids can be horrible
I took home ec and woodshop. Everyone had to do it in the 90s I guess.
But if I was older and felt like I was coming up against an issue with colleagues talking about it, I'd just say I was home schooled like I should have been, and drop it. School isn't a happy topic and it only annoys me other people recalling their fun school days when I hated every freaking minute of it. If they wanted to know the origin of my carpentry know-how I'd tell them: my dad was a carpenter and a guitar maker. Which he was, and taught me how to build my own stuff.
In my school, girls too home ec and art, boys took drafting and shop.
My mother went to the school and demanded that my sister be allowed to take drafting and shop. The school relented.
My sister later graduated from Duke University school of engineering.
In middle school I took Home Ec, also called Family and Consumer Sciences. My best friend Dillon and I had a blast learning to cook and sew in between goofing off and joking around.
For my middle school, Home Ec and woodshop were required courses, and were available for both boys AND girls. The boys had no problem cooking and sewing, and the girls (myself included) enjoyed working in woodshop. We didn't have an actual "Home Ec" class in high school, more of a set of general cooking classes, Intro to Foods and Foods 1,2 and 3. They were loved by all genders thanks to the instructor Mrs. Marhalewitz. She was one of the school's favorite teachers.
Though please don't think that our high school was SUPER progressive. There was still a bit of homophobia and ableism that went around.
In middle school we were assigned classes with no electives other than band which got you out of PhysEd. I was in the band because I DIDN'T want to be in a locker room with a bunch of boys. The high school I went to in Georgia and the first high school I went to in Texas didn't allow boys to take Home Ec. My senior year I went to a brand new high school and seniors could pretty much take what they wanted. A few boys did take HomeEc mostly to be in a class full of girls.
Quote from: Cindy on April 04, 2016, 02:03:19 AM
f you think about it school should teach life skills. We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and people have no idea how to cook a basic meal. Both males, females of whatever background should leave school with the ability to wash themselves, care for their clothes, cook a meal, clean their home, maintain a budget (or at least know what one is) and to not be socially awkward.
I was lucky Cindy. My mom was a nurse and sometimes worked shift work along with my father being career Army. Since I had a disabled brother and a much younger brother, I had to help mom around the house quite a bit. I could cook, clean, vacuum (hoover), do laundry and take care not only myself but my brothers by the time I was 13. I didn't have a say in the budget then. ;) Dee sometimes says with all Mom taught me, I'm a great little housewife.
No but I graduated in 1961.
For some reason... I think it was my music classes... I couldn't get shop scheduled. They let me take Home Economics instead. That was in junior high. The thing is, I really liked shop and wanted to take it. Home Ec was bore me silly bad. I already knew all that stuff! Had we learned to sew, that would have been different but they didn't teach that until high school. I never have learned to sew very well on my own.
Home ec, sewing and typing was mandatory for boys at my trade school, just as welding, woodwork etc was mandatory for girls
I was miserable at sewing and would have needed more than a semester to become proficient--but it's hard to become good at something you hate to do.
The teacher, knowing that I had limited experience, suggested a simple project, a wraparound skirt. I had barely finished it when the other kids had gone on to second and even third projects. Near the end of the term, the teacher dressed me down for choosing such a complicated project. ???
It was mandatory that all students, regardless of gender, take and pass basic cooking, basic sewing, and basic wood working in my junior high school - which considering it was WV, was quite progressive to have boys cooking or sewing and girls using tools. I barely passed all 3, but have gone on to become an awesome chef, I can mend basic clothing, and I still suck and have no interest in wood working. Though I can use all the basic tools and fix nearly anything in the house if I have to.
Quote from: Arch on April 03, 2016, 10:51:59 PM
I had wanted to take wood shop, but my counselor told me that shop was not an option for girls. I didn't know enough to call her on it, so I took a hideous sewing class with a bunch of hideous "mean girls" and hated pretty much every minute of it. Damn that counselor. She lied to me. Title IX guaranteed me equal rights to education, and she freaking lied to me--or the school did. I still get pissed off when I think about it. And I wish I hadn't been so meek about it, but that's how most girls were raised in my day.
I am so sorry to hear that. That's horrible!
My school (early 90s) was much more enlightened. Everybody ran through wood, metal, home ec, music for 6 weeks each. After the first year, you could pick electives which included stuff like screen printing (the only one I remember taking, maybe bc my crush was in it too).
In home ec we were supposed to use sewing machines and I got the teacher to let me do a jacket with the boys instead of a stuffed animal (why??) with the girls. Our home ec teacher was cool. (The cooking part involved a lot of sweets and was really popular.)
Some time after I graduated they needed more classrooms so they eliminated wood shop and metal shop. :(((((
Did anyone actually learn anything useful in home ec or woodshop??
About the only thing I retained from any of it was how to make a chocolate cake. Which is always useful.
I couldn't tell ya how to use a sewing machine after the debacle with them in home ec. - those things were clearly invented by Satan to spread unholy mess and stabbed fingers here on earth. In wood shop someone forgot to use a spirit level to make tables that actually stand up, and I guess we did learn how to make a metal ashtray that would flip over if you were stupid enough to touch it while resting your butt there.
In all, I think cooking was the only thing that most kids would have benefited from (there were some in the class who just about knew how to make toast & tea and not much else). And I do actually enjoy cooking - maybe I got the bug from class, I dunno. My family used to look forward to what I brought back from cookery so it can't have been too bad.
Quote from: T.K.G.W. on April 10, 2016, 10:47:47 AM
Did anyone actually learn anything useful in home ec or woodshop??
About the only thing I retained from any of it was how to make a chocolate cake. Which is always useful.
I couldn't tell ya how to use a sewing machine after the debacle with them in home ec. - those things were clearly invented by Satan to spread unholy mess and stabbed fingers here on earth. In wood shop someone forgot to use a spirit level to make tables that actually stand up, and I guess we did learn how to make a metal ashtray that would flip over if you were stupid enough to touch it while resting your butt there.
In all, I think cooking was the only thing that most kids would have benefited from (there were some in the class who just about knew how to make toast & tea and not much else). And I do actually enjoy cooking - maybe I got the bug from class, I dunno. My family used to look forward to what I brought back from cookery so it can't have been too bad.
Short answer; nope ::). My food technology class only taught you how to cook professionally; for example following instructions on what ingredients to include and learning different types of production methods. This of course wasn't exciting to any of us and I doubt anyone wanted to do cookery for a living. It would of been far better if we learned how to cook certain recipes so we'd have some idea how to feed ourselves as adults.
Wood work wasn't much better. Again we were given different projects within the year and had to follow it to the letter. We also had to design the product as well. If you didn't want to do woodwork for a living these classes were completely pointless and left over from the 1950s when working class boys had no other choice than working in the local factory where these skills were needed.
I enjoyed using the sewing machine when for a part of the school year (I think it was year 9) we were given a break from woodwork and got to design our own design to put onto a drawstring bag.
I'm really bitter about secondary school generally. They taught us nothing useful.
Quote from: T.K.G.W. on April 10, 2016, 10:47:47 AM
Did anyone actually learn anything useful in home ec or woodshop??
About the only thing I retained from any of it was how to make a chocolate cake. Which is always useful.
I couldn't tell ya how to use a sewing machine after the debacle with them in home ec. - those things were clearly invented by Satan to spread unholy mess and stabbed fingers here on earth. In wood shop someone forgot to use a spirit level to make tables that actually stand up, and I guess we did learn how to make a metal ashtray that would flip over if you were stupid enough to touch it while resting your butt there.
In all, I think cooking was the only thing that most kids would have benefited from (there were some in the class who just about knew how to make toast & tea and not much else). And I do actually enjoy cooking - maybe I got the bug from class, I dunno. My family used to look forward to what I brought back from cookery so it can't have been too bad.
I learned how to sew enough to hem my husband's pants... that's about it from home Ec. I knew how to cook before that.
In shop, I learned a lot about large power tools that my grandfather didn't own.
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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!
For me, Home Ec classes were required for girls, and shop classes were denied. Until my Senior year, also the first year the school had computers. I took every shop class and computer club, (no computer classes were offered).
When I was in Middle/High School (1990s), I don't believe it was required or prohibited based on gender. My mom got them to let me switch from Gym to Home Economics in 7th or 8th grade as I was repeatedly bullied/assaulted in the Boys' Locker Rooms. They didn't know I was trans* (only my parents and one other person knew at the time), but it was widely rumored that I was homosexual which put a target on my back.
[EDIT] The assignment of electives other than Gym and Computers (which were I believe required) was done by grouping students into "teams". Students on the same "team" typically had the same teachers and classes, but not necessarily during the same class period.
My middle school (1989-91) mandated both girls and boys took at least one home ec class if I remember correctly. I know I took one. Cooking was fun, sewing was frustrating.
In middle school (Junior High as it was called in Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System in NC) in the 7th grade (1983) everyone was require to take Home Economics and Shop. I remember making monkeybread as a treat during class. It was one of my favorite classes :)
I never cooked anything til I was 31, Dad never cooked anything til he was 84! Learning to cook would have been really useful
Well diversified here. In school, I took drafting, wood shop, metal shop, small engines, home economics, typing (required). At home, I was already sewing, cooking and baking thanks to mom; with dad, I was pounding nails, laying nails, setting block walls, plumbing, electrical when I was 8 (along with fixing machines\engines and whatever) before the school classes.
Had little to no "play time," however I couldn't have asked for a better childhood (other than being born with the proper gender).
I almost always took shop when it was offered. I only went to one school where I had to take home ec, and there it was required for everyone to take it. Which wasn't a bad thing actually. Everyone should learn how to do basic cooking and sewing.
Took Home Ec when I was in 8th grade and loved learning how to cook and use a sewing machine
Quote from: Arch on April 10, 2016, 04:05:26 PM
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.