Reading all your posts .... so sad that some of you didn't like your HE classes. I didn't take HE in high school because being college-prep, there wasn't time for it. But I did get my college degree in HE and taught it for many years. I hope I wasn't one of those hated HE teachers. I do keep in touch with some of my old students after all these years, so I know that some of them liked the classes. I did have many come back after being in college... to thank me for teaching what they needed to survive.
The school district that I taught in started dropping HE classes with the excuse that they were too expensive to maintain all the equipment and 4-H was offered in our area so kids could learn everything by joining 4-H. I didn't buy it. They dropped it because of insurance.... what if someone got a needle in their finger or burned themselves on the stove. That never happened in all the classes I taught but one by one, the classes became fewer and fewer. And, to be honest, HE was discouraged for anyone except the problem students or the disabled..... sad.
So, I when I went back to get my master's degree, I chose physics and taught college bound physics my last 7 years. The problem for me was that parents thought that a HE teacher couldn't possibly have enough brains to teach physics. Well, wake up. I had brains and skills...... and again, I had students that went to college with physics for a major. I keep in touch with some of those students, as well.
I think I heard that only 1 college in Michigan offers a major in HE (now it's called FACS). Correct me if I'm wrong. And I had no trouble getting a HE teaching job in NC a few years back because there aren't many qualified teachers out there. Again, they hire people that say they know how to sew or.... anybody can cook, can't they?
So, I still 'teach' HE to friends, and my great-granddaughters. I think it's a shame that people have such a low opinion of the skills that are taught in HE. And, as my tailoring master once told me, if young people don't learn these skills, they will be lost.