When I was in 9th grade, northen NJ circa 1971-72, there was a Home Economics course in my High School. For some bizarre reason it was considered "hip" for guys to take, jocks and all, and 50% of the class was boys. Maybe it was a way to cut out on harder classes as an elective, who knows. Anyway, I took Home Ec, and it was my first exposure to cracking an egg - The school had a full kitchen in the classroom. I remember thinking it was cool and an easy way to score an A.

I assume Home Economics as a class died a slow death around 1975 or so; about the same time Wood Shop disappeared...where is that hand made shoe polish kit I gave dad for father's day and that easy bake oven...

J.

I remember going to a parochial school and all thirty of us (co-ed) traipsing across town (Evanston) to (Skokie) every Friday of 7th & 8th grade, to take Home Ed classes at the public jr high that offered it as a regular course of study. This was 67 and 68. I know the girls took cooking and sewing, and I think the boys had shop, maybe automotive and wood.

I think it died when both partners entered the workforce en mass ... and America stopped being largely a rural society and started being an urban one.

Had Home Ec...it was required.
Loved the cooking; detested the sewing. Now I wish I'd paid more attention!

Au contraire......

I work in two districts in NJ. One just gave up on Home Ec this year. It had become the dumping ground for problem kids who had to go somewhere. However, Home Ec is alive and well in the other district. In the last 10 years or so, the name has changed to Family and Consumer Science. Different school districts have classes reflecting this name change including household budgeting and management and the typical sewing and cooking.. I don't know how unique it is, but one of my districts has a program called Working with Children where high school students rotate thru two pre-school sessions held in specially contructed rooms in the high school. Under the supervision of a regular teacher, the h.s. students (mostly girls) conduct all the activities. They write lesson plans, teach sessions, supervise the children, write reports....the whole ball of wax.

I flunked my gathered skirt!

Later on in N.C. my neighbors taught me to sew. It was fun back then..........NO MORE! Shop til you drop.

I went to two schools, one in Charleston, WVA, and one in Walcott, Rhode Island, for 9th grade. The WVA school had mandatory HomeEc, and it was all about cooking. I loved that class. The school in RI didn't offer Home Ec.

I'd love to have taken Shop, too.

I love that someone is still giving it a shot!.
How about "Department of Homeland Security" for a name?

J.

Even then the handwriting was on the wall: "This woman is an home managment disaster. DO NOT allow her near any domestic vehicles."

I remember distinctly baking cupcakes and making homemade lollipops in home ec in 7th grade....that would have been '76 or '77. I also remember distinctly sewing very poorly that same year. I know at the high chool in the district where I teach, Family and Consumer Science (yup, we call it that as well) is alive and well.

I had Home Ec. It was like a vaccination that didn't "take".

In sewing, I never got past the required apron. I was known as Jackie the Ripper.

I won't say anything about the cooking part except I made a cake that the rest of the class named "Freckles". I never made a cake since. My self confidence can take just so many blows.

I wanted to take Wood Shop but wasn't allowed and had to take Home Ec instead. This would have been 7th or 8th grade, around 1972, I think.

I already knew how to sew so that was a waste. We made the ugliest cotton print sheaths! And aprons!

All I remember about the cooking part was "Don't overbeat your muffins or you'll have tunnels!"

Yep! Whatever you DO......Don't overbeat them muffins!!

We still have it in many schools. Its now called life skills or living skills. My 17 year old has had it 3 years so far. Its still sewing, cooking, budgeting etc.

However, being a fossil I remember a time when it was taught as "home" economics. Women were likely to stay at home and our teacher taught us how to cook economically and from scratch. It was a tad bit late for me. I had been cooking full meals since I was 11. I can remember one class in particular when she told us it should not take a piece of shortening larger than a pea to grease a cake pan.

Now thats home economics!!

Yep, we had home ec, but I honestly can't remember if I took it or not. I think I must have because I can picture the room, but I do not remember ever sewing or baking a thing, so either I didn't take it or my drugs were just THAT good. A definite possibility.

Anyway, that would have been 1977 or so in Central Jersey. If that helps at all...

In 1980/1981, in my junior high school (Grade 7 & 8), both home economics and "industrial arts" (shop) were mandatory credits for all students, male and female.

I can barely recall making banana cupcakes, sewing pillows and purses (I believe my mother ended up sewing my pillow). I don't think I've sewn anything since.

I didn't do much better in the shop class. In fact, I dreaded it - all those machines with sharp blades! And I swear I'm allergic to sawdust. I can't and won't do anything remotely related to shop and carpentry.

In 1980/81, all students were required to take these courses but students were segregated by gender. Just as well, shop would have been too distressing if I were surrounded by 13 year old boys.

The only thing I recall that worse than Home Economics and Industrial Arts was taking gym and wearing a blue "romper".

In Junior High we made aprons, baked sugar cookies from scratch (they were awful) and...pizza! From scratch! With hot Italian sausage. Everyone in the school was drawn to the home ec room like moths to the flame. It was the very best pizza I had ever had, and to this day haven't had any quite so good. The boys had shop and every father got a shoe tree/tissue box cover/tray for loose change. Lots more fun than math, history, or diagramming sentences in English class....

I went to a small town school that went from grades kindergarten through ninth...and we were FORCED to take Home Economics in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. All girls' school.
Yuck! I hated it!
We did basically the same thing (NOTHING!), all three years, and the teacher had her favorites...and only they were allowed to do the fun things.
And the sewing!!! Oh, my! I despised that! I can't believe I passed the class the last year, because I never finished my sewing project. It was a heinous smocked blouse.
I would have preferred taking 'shop'...or ANYthing other than Home Economics.
And we didn't EVEN talk about the juicy stuff...like sex.
That was back between 1973 - 1976.
Bad memories.

I took Home Ec at a private all-girls school back in 1981-82, when I was a HS Sophomore. All I remember about it is making Iles Flottantes, a French dessert, and that I was disastrous at sewing. (I'm with Glo - shop till you drop!)

Shopping IS a profession right?

It was a requirement for females in Jr. High (7th and 8th grades). I loved the cooking part...except I remember being admonished because my muffins developed 'tunnels'...ha! The sewing part was not for me, unfortunately. I made a sick looking turtle pillow and then we had to make an article of clothing in 8th grade. I made a sailor shirt. Just laying out the material and cutting out the pattern made me dizzy because of all the narrow stripes. After our garment was finished we held a little 'style show'. I burnt a hole in my shirt ironing it and my Home Ec teacher almost fainted. I passed, but geez-oh-pete, I detested the sewing segment of the class.

Home Ec has been replaced by family living and such courses in my area. It is a shame...some girls, let alone, boys never learn how to cook or sew on a button, etc.

I went to a girls school and there were sewing classes, but they were electives not required. I took the sewing class because I already knew how to sew and had made a pantsuit by then. I thought it would be an easy "A", not! The teacher was never available and we only had an hour to set up the machines and sew the project. You weren't allowed to take it home to "work on" (read have someone experienced do it!) either.

At the end, I had made a cute flippy miniskirt with mushrooms and toadstools on it, lol. We had a "fashion show" in the auditorium and I wore that skirt! What funny memories:-)

Oh my, I went to an all girls school and had the same kind of fashion show. My outfit was a two piece dress from a Vogue pattern. I sewed and ripped so many seams and sewed again that while it looked great, it began to fall apart during the fashion show. I remember it was aqua and white and the saftey pins that held it together gave it a nice silver touch here and there. I got a B in the class because I promised the teacher I'd never take any of her classes again.

In Denmark it's still very much alive. No room for picking and choosing here, all pupils have to take it. With the dominating fast food culture I can see the point, but - oh - how I hated it myself! :-)

I SERIOUSLY think that schools should offer courses in RELATIONSHIPS rather than this.........
So.......many marriages end in divorce and families are split apart.....I think it would help much more in the long run.
It would also help in job situations and working relationships.
We just don't get any training in the most important area of our life.

Hi perfumeo! Well, it looks as though we're close to the same age . . . I graduated high school, in '73. During sophomore year, I had to leave Horace Mann school, in Gary . . . transferred to a Catholic School, even though I'm Greek Orthodox. I don't recall any male students, taking home economics . . . in Gary, I took orchestra, to escape wood shop. I played . . . viola. Do not remember any male students taking home ec. courses, period.

By the time I hit high school in 1970 in suburban New York, college-track girls wouldn't have been caught dead in home ec, which wasn't required.

I, for one, am glad Home Ec. as we know it is dead.

I had to take a home ec. class for a quarter in 7th grade. It should have been fun, but I'd just read "The Feminine Mystique" and was painfully aware of the 'feminine' nature of the things we were doing. It's embarrassing, but I did awful in that class. I was a really good student back then, all straight A's, but Home Ec. was the only class I got a 'B' in that quarter---AND THAT WAS A HARD THING TO DO. Most people got A's in Home Ec....not me.

Another thing was that the food was different...even the way the teacher INSISTED we washed dishes were TOTALLY foreign to me. At seventh grade, I was really quite sheltered. I ate Filipino food almost every day, washed the dishes MY PARENTS' way, and ate with a spoon and fork (yes, Filipinos eat with a spoon and fork). I had never in my life set a table with just a knife and fork. And I thought the whole thing was silly. The teacher insisted that we wash all the dishes her way...essentially 'dipping' them in a bunch of soapy water and then rinsing. I didn't feel they were clean enough, so I always used extra soap instead of just dunking them into the soapy water. I got yelled at for that.

In the end, I think that the class was a remnant of 1950s style conformist education. There was no room for 'different ways' of doing things. There was no room for other kinds of food. There was no room for other procedures.

I'm getting angry just thinking about it...

WHY IN THE HECK SHOULD A STUDENT'S GRADE DEPEND ON WHERE THE FORK WAS PLACED ON A PLACEMAT?!???? OR IF THE DISHES WERE WASHED A CERTAIN WAY???!?

And you know what? In the end, I turned out to be a great cook. I can set the table as well as anybody (unless that anybody happens to be Martha Stewart).

And thank goodness that class only lasted a few weeks. Soon afterwards, we had Nutrition and Sex Ed with different teachers.

Wood Shop (and metal shop) got renamed Tech Ed. and was a great experience. At least there wasn't enforcement of cultural norms in THAT class.

I had to take it as a senior in high school, 1967-68. I remember very little about it except that Mrs. King, red-headed and middle-aged, emphasized the importance of a good cook being able to make a white "sowce," and that she gave me an F on the pink dotted Swiss bathrobe I sewed because she thought my mother had made it!!

I remember having to take it in middle school in the seventh grade which would have been 1984-1985. I cross-stitched a gingham pillow and made an orange gingham apron. I remember having to do some cooking as well.

My school had home ec and shop. I didn't take either. It wasn't required. Several girls took shop, but
I don't remember any boys taking home ec. This was in the late 60's. Twenty years later my son was
assigned to a class that was half the year cooking and the other half sewing and he couldn't get out of it.
Geeezz was he upset. Turned out he loved the cooking part. I had to help him a lot with the sewing. It
frustrated him so much.

I flunked my drawstring apron. I attached the strings, but they didn't draw. I got an A- on my skirt, because I smuggled it out of the school and my grandmother did it for me. Dishonest? I prefer to think of it as survival. Years later, my mother asked me if I wanted her to get me a sewing machine for my anniversary gift. I reminded her that I had not done particularly well in sewing class.

Home Ec is still alive and well in our school district, both at the Middle School and at the High School. At the MS, all the 7th and 8th graders take it and they LOVE it! At the High School, it's a elective.

Ahhh... memories of Home Ec... I remember three things: making prune whip (the first, last and only time I ever made or heard of anyone ever making prune whip), learning how to iron (good one--came in handy!) and making that proverbial apron (badly). It was very irregularly sewn but my mom and I wore it anyway. It lasted about 25 years till the material shredded but the stitching was still as strong as iron. One thing about my sewing--it is STRONG! If I sew on a button the whole item can fall apart over time but that button will never come off! I hated Home Ec although I enjoy cooking but not sewing.