Are there still home ec teachers in school?

[Numommy]

Editing for a bump.
How does one get into this? Is there like a textiles degree then teacher certification?

I'm really considering going back to school for this...
Does it still exist?

[DalesWidda]

Yes there are, but it isn't called Home ec anymore. It's like Family Technology or something along those lines.

[ericsmom99]

My DD has a class called "food for today". It's pretty much a cooking class. She loves it, they make pretty complicated dishes and learn all about food safety, how to use a knife correctly, etc. It's a great class.

Btw this is in high school.

[luvsviola]

Not in the middle schools in my township. We do have Family and Consumer Science at the high school, though.

[Bethany89]

Not in my school district.

[CarrieMF]

yes and it is still called home ed here.

However not all the teachers teach only home ec. In the middle school I worked in last year 1 teacher taught all home ec, the other home ec teacher taught mostly grade 7 ela, social, pa. In the other middle school here there are 2 teachers who teach home ec, but neither are full time home ec teachers.

The high school has a full time home ec teacher, but they may have other teachers teaching home ec and other classes too.

the middle schools have Advanced Home Ec for the grade 9's as an elective.

[happysmileylady]

I suppose that depends on what you consider "Home Economics." When I was in school, Home Ec was a semester of sewing and a semester of cooking. At my daughter's high school, they have a whole category of electives called "Family and Consumer Sciences." It includes these classes

Interpersonal Relationships Nutrition & Wellness Adv Nutrition & Foods I Adv Nutrition & Foods II Child Dev & Parenting Adv Child Development Housing & Interiors I Housing & Interiors II Orientation to Life/Careers Personal and Family Finance

I am not sure it's good enough to be honest. The housing and interiors classes, the way I read the manual, are really just decorating classes. The personal and family finance course really seems to read like it's more geared towards special needs teens and helping them learn to live on their own. It may not be, the description was filled with a lot of fluff. There's a different financial course offered in the business categories called personal finance that seems much more like what you would consider a personal finance type of course. The child development and the foods courses look like what you would expect. Some things I wish they had were some sort of sewing/mending/knitting or other textiles type of course, a gardening course, that maybe dabbled in a bit of canning, freezing that sort of thing. Also, something with basic home repairs would be great-how to repair a hole in drywall, how to do some basic plumbing repairs, that sort of thing. THAT, to me, is the REAL home ec stuff. And its stuff that so many people just don't know how to do anymore. If drano doesn't take care of the clog, call a plumber.

[Aleta]

Family and Consumer Science

[happysmileylady]

Now, I just went back and looked at the current coursebook for the school I graduated from. They have what I consider to be a much better "family and consumer sciences" department. It includes what appear to be the same ones as above, but it also includes two semesters of "fashion and textiles" In addition, I graduated from a slightly more rural school, where a lot of farmers kids have historically attended so they have a thriving agricultural department, with a greenhouse. So there are additional courses in the agricultural department about gardening and that sort of thing.

[happysmileylady]

And, you know what, going through these...when I was in school, you had "shop class." which was a woodworking class, a bit of welding maybe. My high school was JUST starting, like right in my senior year, to develop an automotive class. But now, that whole department is called "technology education" and it's broken down into things like "principles of engineering" and "digital electronics" and "construction processes" and so on. It just seems to be broken down into so many more classes and specializations, where "home ec" hasn't broken out much at all. It's as if we are forgetting to teach our kids how to do for themselves-how to make their own food, how to do their own repairs, make their own clothes etc etc.