Home Economics

As I started to make my son's Halloween costume, a strange creature named Vivi from a game called Final Fantasy, yes I am making it myself, and yes, I know I am ahead of the curve as my Halloween and Christmas and Chanukah shopping is already in full bloom, I was thrust back into my public jr. high school home economics class where I learned how to sew with a sewing machine. Now, if you asked me what I learned in jr. high I would reply: photosynthesis, JFK's assassination and how to sew a dress from a Simplicity pattern. Like bike riding, I was amazed this morning at how quickly I was sewing nice, straight seams, moving with ease as I navigated my homemade pattern. Laying a zipper, making a hem, waistband and even a dart all came back to me with little to no trial and error. I remembered back to a day when I was taught those skills along with rudimentary cooking, music, drama and the basic food groups of learning, science, math, english, history, foreign language and even art, that now being a discarded basic and a vanishing breed of even extra-curricular activities. I remember learning how to draw in 3 D, to make a square into a cube, a room with walls and windows. Skills I use on a daily basis. Lost to current students in the downsizing of education. Even the name of the class, home economics is lost as everyone struggles to find their way in this tech driven/ business society. Any mother or father for that matter who has taken care of her own home economics, cleaning, cooking, mending and minor carpentry skills will lament the lack of respect and remuneration given to those fields yet they are vital to the sustaining of any race of people and are crucial to a public body growing and developing.

I AM NOT SAYING THAT I FACE THAT DAILY ECONOMIC CRISIS, SO ALL YOU SOON-TO- RESPOND-WITH-YOUR-COMMENTS FOLKS TAKE A CHILL PILL AND JUST GO WITH ME HERE.

I am not, for a second, trying even to relate to the daily struggle of a low-income mother trying to raise and educate her children in today's crumbling economy. I am only saying that my ability to sew this outfit, pants, hat, and jacket, with facing and grommets and zippers is only because I was TAUGHT. It reminds me how far we have fallen in giving our children the skills they need to succeed either in the big business world or in the big household world. We are FAILING. In music, art, home-ec, cooking, shop (remember shop?) as well as the basics, according to every study we are FAILING. We are Americans and we are getting an F in educating our children. Wake up and smell the global competition. Twenty other countries beat us in science; we are listed 24th in math. We need to let our elected leaders know that education should be the most important issue in this election. Without it, our children, the future of this great nation, will be unprepared and will watch jobs being given to people from other countries.

I am glad that I was given these skills as part of a basic, public school education. I want that for all children. So that whether they end up a political leader, scientist, teacher, artist or homemaker they all are given the best education possible so that they can develop their God given talents and abilities and flourish and thrive as adults.

Maybe if Obama wins, I will sew him a nice tie to wear for his inauguration.

Comments

[lizr]

I AM NOT SAYING THAT I FACE THAT DAILY ECONOMIC CRISIS, SO ALL YOU SOON-TO- RESPOND-WITH-YOUR-COMMENTS FOLKS TAKE A CHILL PILL AND JUST GO WITH ME HERE.

LOL-

I would NEVER fault you for identifying with the women who do face that economic crisis. Only the armchair academics and snarky types who love to make everyone miserable would do that :)

[EngineerBill]

umm one other point. Like myself, you had a pre-Prop13 education. California's educational system has spiraled down ever since.

[csg629]

I agree with many of the previous replies, especially Unbias View's comments which pretty much hit the mark. I teach 4th grade in a public school in Los Angeles. The population we serve includes students from across all racial and social backgrounds. I can tell you right now, the students who tend to perform the best in my classroom are the students whose parents make their children's education the top priority.
However, I disagree with Ms. Curtis about getting politicians to help solve the problem. I think that the myriad of problems in education that need to be addressed, can not be solved by legislators alone. They usually do not know enough about the complexities of education to create effective legislation.
In my opinion, politicians would be better served by conferring with educators who have a variety of opinions, experience and backgrounds. Additionally, legislators should be required to spend at least 3 days in a classroom as a teacher. It would prove to be a real eye opening experience.

[junetalks]

My seventh grade home ec skirt turned out so bad that I flushed it down the school toilet!

[jcorrington]

Until we quit giving all our money to Iraq, Halliburton and Afgan, we can't afford to do anything in this country..

[shp]

Yea, right, like we haven't been declining in the education area for a couple of decades. Bush, in all his infinite wisdom, gave us NCLB. Prior to that? Social promotion? Ever heard of it? Yea, it's all Iraq's fault.

[wagadog]

Riiight.

And if we were too poor to have children in the first place?

[huffingNpuffing]

Without knowledge there can be no understanding; without understanding there can be no appreciation; without appreciation there can be no love; without love what is life?

In America we have the right to life, liberty and happiness; education frees us to live happily; without it we are the slaves of our own ignorance.

When Barack Obama becomes President, the Millennium Generation conceived out of love by choice will be empowered to educate and change the world forever.

Jamie, do you have an available older sister? ;)

[Bitsko]

Unfortunately, I know too many poor and middle class Americans who only seem to want their children to know their bible inside out, as opposed to their Darwin.

A very telling and informative article, Ms. Curtis. Let's her more from you.

[MyTake]

Page 2/2

But what if we created a horizontal society with everyone skilled and pulling the load equally. We, in this century, desperately need to introduce a second trained adult into that classroom and call that person a "student personnel manager". The Teacher needs to be released from trying to teach and manage students at the same time and only be utilized to teach curriculum and skills. The Student Personnel Manager needs to manage students and determine what they can learn, how to learn and determine what they want to learn. Those managers are all pervasive. They manage the classroom, the hallways, the playgrounds and the arrival and departure of students. Students need to be psychologically comfortable and be stress free from bias, prejudice and fear in order to embrace learning.

Obama has not thought of this concept even though he has teaching experience. But if you make that tie for him, add to your note this concept of student personnel management. He might just buy into it.

Regards.

[eashep]

I have been saying this for years! But the response is basically "We don't have enough resources to hire qualified teachers, how are we going to hire qualified classroom managers?" When I was given a class of 34 Algebra 1 students, where a quarter of them were repeaters, I would have loved to have been able to focus my full attention on the lessons, rather than having to spend an enormous amount of energy determining the delicate balance of what distractions to overlook and which were worthy of taking time out of class to deal with. A class manager would have been perfect!

[MyTake]

Your observations are priceless.

It would require a head-of-state (a President, a Governor, a Mayor) to develop test model and run the program in a dozen schools. The results would be so overwhelming that it would spread from there.

The cost too society, in losing those kids in the education system, would be dramatically recovered if that education system turned out a well adjusted student and easily pay for the cost of administration of this concept. Just simply survey the justice system and the prison population and track back to the eduction experience for those people and you then have the answers that support this concept.

It is good to know that others think about these matters.

I am sorry that Huffpo got my two messages out of sequence.

[MyTake]

Page ½

Are you the Jamie Lee Curtis that is now driving the environmental friendly hydrogen fuel cell Honda car? Of course you are and I am so glad that you are engaged in that area as well as your sewing skills. I would really appreciate an article from you about your hydrogen vehicle experience. For if each student had their own source of free and safe electrical power, they will have the resource to put their idea's to work and develop their skill set. It is that independent source of power that is the clear path out of this unbridled North American consumerism that inhibits personal development everywhere.

But, education can be turned around on a dime. We must abolish the concept of a 20-25 youngsters in a rectangular classroom with 1 head-of-state. The upper 1/3 students get a relative pass, the middle 1/3 becomes the government's tax base and the lower 1/3 become a drain on government resources. The end result is a vertical society with the winners at the top and the losers at the bottom.

[Lolasmom]

What a great post!

I agree, though I failed miserably in home-ec.

[ricchase]

Of all the backwards, wrong, and just plain evil actions and policies of the current administration, the deliberate stifling of science and education must be ranked at or near the top of it's worst endeavors.

[ponderman]

We are educating our children....to become mindless consumers. It is essential to keep our phony economic system going.

[Totallyorderless]

Jamie,
I gratefully thank you for your remarks. I am a school teacher. I teach music. I've defended arts education my whole career (10 years). Too often, I think people forget how these so called "frivolous electives" have helped them to become better parents and citizens. It's a tragedy that they are disappearing from our curriculum.

[Blivet]

Our son’s wife, a trained classical musician, teaches at the junior-high/high school level. Each time we attend a concert put on by her students I am stunned by her student’s talents. She is poorly paid for her efforts in a private school filled with high achievers who will most likely go on to be high achievers in real life. But, although the school takes advantage of her gifts, it is the students who really appreciate what she does for them. At a recent concert, when she was introduced to the audience, a tumultuous burst of applause came, not from the audience, but from the students who were playing in the orchestra and those in the audience.
There is no question regarding the influence music has in all our lives, probably more so than many traditional academic subjects, yet when crunch time comes, public school music and the arts are the first sacrifices on the altar of financial accountability. Although I am a PhD scientist who taught at the college level for more than thirty years, I too am appalled at the low levels of achievement of our high school students when compared with their counterparts from other first world countries. And I’m staggered by the lack of interest in this deficit on the part of the current Presidential candidates because I recognize that while science and technology make our life what it is today, it is music and the arts that make it tolerable.

[CintiBlue]

Totallyorderless:

I'm 57 and still remember what I was introduced to in Annette Manning's music class. She and an art teacher came to our school two days each week, then another school two days. They were not elective, but meant to introduce grades 4, 5, and 6 to the subjects.

I remember playing the recorder, autoharp, various drums, trying out simple piano songs, being introduced to the Vienna Boys' Choir and learning that an obnoxious boy in class could sing as clear as a bell like them (and that sometimes boys that age can do that), preparing for a couple of recitals each year (The Sound of Music was perfectly timed for 6th grade; the play, not the movie).

This was a general introduction and I remember it nearly 50 years later. Imagine the effect of more in-depth study "frivolous electives" offer. But, you know that. Keep up your fight.

[mountainsara]

I think Jamie makes some great points, however why is it the responsibility of the government to teach kids how to cook and sew? We should be focusing on math, science, history and languages. There are plenty of ways to fill the home ec gaps...Martha Stewart for one. (Reading her magazines in my 20's taught me EVERYTHING I know about home ec because I didn't learn it in school either.) We absolutely need to fix education but lets focus on the basics first....maybe make the art, music, home ec etc. electives.

[Romeover]

Mountainsara,

When you start out by 'focusing' on the 'basics', you set yourself up to ignore the 'electives'. What makes history more important than art, or science more important than music? Is our goal a well-rounded population, or a nation of minimally-educated but 'productive' workers?

The forgotten point is that our schools WERE better, our schools DID teach more than the 'basics', and our schools CAN do so again, but only if we set a comprehensive education as a national goal, and devote sufficient resources to achieve that goal.