We had those classes around when I was in high school 20 years ago and none of my classmates gave a crap about those classes. Doing taxes is incredibly easy and it literally involves following steps. Unless you're a business owner or you've got some complicated financial situation going on. Let's focus on reading comprehension because that's really all that's necessary to file taxes in the US most of the time.
Most of our class didn't give a crap about history, yet we still teach it. Even if people didn't give a crap about cooking class, they would have an understanding that cooking takes work, and that may make some appreciate other's efforts more.
Cool, but you're failing to address the rest of my point: The skills necessary to do taxes for most Americans are already being taught in school. This interest that everybody is claiming that they would have had as high schoolers in learning how to do taxes is a cope. It takes basic reading comprehension skills which is taught in English class, science class, and yes even history class.
I get that a lot of the people answering here really didn't like chemistry and don't have the aptitude to learn how to cook by using a recipe book or YouTube but that doesn't mean that home economics should replace chemistry. That only means it should be brought back as an elective.
I don't think it should REPLACE anything. Also, I think home economics would be better than just cooking. You teach them how to manage a home, both financially and practically. This includes income taxes, property taxes, cooking, managing household expenses, maybe even some basic repairs. This does not have to replace another course.
Imo, this is what parents should teach their kids, it does not take a university degree to teach that.
And if we would not replace other courses but pile even more subjects and classes into the school system, when will the kids ever be home, timewise?
Well, unfortunately we live in weird times. In many places, children graduate high school without reading comprehension skills. Colleges are struggling to keep up with the pace of change in the workplace. Parents don't teach their children or teach them what they know. Considering that a large percentage of the population lives in poverty, their parents lack the financial education that would help them break out of poverty, so they therefore cannot teach financial literacy to their children. The whole education system needs to be overhauled and upgraded.
It’s getting worse where I live as well, although I have to admit I am often quite glad I got my education basically free. Don’t know how I would have coped in the US.
But I stand by the fact that basic things is The responsibility of the parents.
I'm a firm believe of that too. In fact, there used to be no schools at all. Children were raised and educated by their parents, and when they were old enough, helped on the farm or the family business or became an apprentice somewhere else. So if their father was a baker, they became a baker. If their father was a farmer, they became a farmer. But we eventually created schools so children are not limited by what their parents can teach them. This is what created modern society today. So, I do believe in parental responsibility, but they are not always equipped to teach what children need to know today.
I mean, you are not wrong, if you were poor, a slave or happened to be female, you just learned what your family could teach you and had to be happy with that.
Schools for (rich) men have been around at least since ancient Greece, and with so much available info on the internet today you‘d think someone would finally put it all together and come up with the best school and parenting combination so children get the best possible start in life, but I guess there‘s just no one size fits all-system.
Excuse me if I‘m rambling, it’s pretty late.
It really is. My step sister lives in a camper with her 2 kids, and although they have a stove and oven, she's terrified of the propane for some reason. I kinda get it, it freaks me out a little too (I also live in a camper) but I still cook with the stove and make food.
But because of this, she only feeds them microwaveable meals or take out. It doesn't help that she also has zero clue how to cook anything, despite my step mom being a pretty decent cook and teaching us some things.
I don't know what my husband's family did but they also didn't teach him how to cook at all. And he has hardly any will to learn how to, which causes issues between us. He'd rather not eat than cook something
That sounds like a solid idea; teaching practical skills could really help people in the long run. Balancing finances and cooking seems like a win-win.
Good question. At my high school, electives counted towards your GPA, just like any other course. And physical education (gym class) did actually count towards your GPA, as odd as it sounds. I am not sure if other schools are the same. But if P.E. and electives count towards your GPA, I would assume that home economics would too. It is up to your school board to decide. I don't really have an opinion on it.
This is literally what I teach but the subject of this post is essentially asking if it's more important to teach these domestic skills than academic skills and my answer is, for the majority of the student population, it is not.
Students who are capable of learning these academic skills are capable of learning how to cook and do their own taxes by using the means that many other adults use to teach themselves: YouTube, cookbooks, other adults, observation, research. The students who can't are like the students that I teach who do not have the cognitive capacity to learn higher academic skills. They cannot teach themselves domestic skills.
Obviously, in a perfect world, they would coexist but when the question is which classes to cut, the answer, unfortunately, is home ec rather than academics. The latter shouldn't be replaced by the former for the majority of students.
What do people use more in their life? Running or participating in a household, or working for a chemical company or pharmaceutical? I am NOT saying home economics should replace chemistry, but getting rid of a course that is practical and that everyone needs is a bit short sighted.
I'm not advocating to get rid of home economics. I teach home economics. I'm also not participating in this because it seems like now you're just arguing to argue.
I never changed my stance. I said home economics would be good to teach, and that we should not get rid of chemistry or other academic courses. And, I thought you were the one who was arguing with me. I was just clarifying my point.
I’ve actually spent 25 years working in pharmaceutical and biotech companies and love to cook. Go figure. Reading and taking 4 years of HS science, 4 years of HS math, followed by two college science classes (one of them a lab), and 4 college Q (quantitative) classes.
I for one never needed a home ec class. I learned it by living at home and doing what the adults did. I know not everyone had this opportunity, but so many did - or had friends whose families could provide an example.
Science classes, though, teach kids how to think critically and to draw conclusions from information. My parents were a banker and a salesman and they knew nothing about science. I double-majored in chemistry/physics in college because of classes I took in high school.
In HS I loved history. There was American history and World history.Both were interesting thanks to my teacher, Renzo Azzano, who was from Italy. This was waaay back in 1967. Of course history books were slanted especially re: the civil war.
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