Originally Posted by deplaylady

Do they even do a lot with Home Ec in schools anymore? I mean the type like I remember, cooking, baking, sewing? In junior HS we had cooking and baking, and the sewing (made quite a few dresses), but but the time I got to HS it was an elective and part of the arts department. It was the era of the open-classroom idea (very short lived idea) where one huge room was broken up by partial walls, work desks and counters. one thing that stands out in my memory was a guy in Home Ec hemming at apron that looked up and laughed at me with my oxy-acetylene torch and goggles - I was in Jewelry and probably melting silver or gold at the time. My DDs both had some Home Ec, just a few weeks of each - they made a pie and for sewing got to pick from a set of kits. Not a lot of imagination there. We had to pick our patterns, materials, notions. My DM was totally down with this stuff, she was a GS leader and a 4H leader, I got to see girls come and sew before I knew how to sew. I'm the youngest girl - 3 older sisters, and at first what they had to sew their 4H projects on was a treadle machine - until the oldest got a portable Durkoff for graduation, and my mom liked so much that she bought one in a cabinet for herself. At one time we did have two treadles at my mom's house, my moms (a Singer) and my Aunts Iva's (a White)- after my mom died I'm not sure what happened to them.