Ladies, did you take Shop (or whatever it's called now) in Middle School and/or High School? Men, did you take Home Ec (or whatever it's called now)

I took home ec. Whenever the teacher left the room I grabbed a class of milk from the fridge. I made sugar cookies and beef jerky.

Yep. My eighth grade electives were technology and manufacturing. Technology was a semester of computer games, manufacturing was shop. Mostly wood, but we did make a sweet sheet metal lamp that I wish I still had.

As a boy, I took shop (woodshop activities) and not home ec (there were barely one or two of anything like it available over 12 years).

I ended the semester in shop with a 147% average.

Mr Cella had a policy where if you helped another student with their project, you’d get points of extra credit based on the amount of effort put in.

I did a lot of people’s projects for them.

I wanted to take Home Ec in high school, they had a “boy’s class”, but it conflicted with an advance math class.

My kids went to a middle school that had every kid take a quarter of wood shop and a quarter of Home Ec.

Good for them @zenvelo!

How was boy’s Home Ec different from girl’s home ec?

I did cookery & needlework & consequently learned how to knit spaghetti.
One half of the above is absolutely true…

@Dutchess_III Boys Home Ec was more focused on cooking and meal planning and shopping, plus house cleaning skills. Boys didn’t get any sewing except sewing on a button. They did get ironing.

OIC. Hmm. I sewed the cutest hot pants outfit…and someone stole it! Just a few years ago, on Facebooks, another classmate told me who it was. >_<. Some friend she was.

All students took both classes in my school.

In 7th grade all of us cycled through 4 terms (a term being half a semester or approximately 9 weeks) of “electives.” If I remember correctly you could choose from about 6 different choices. I took woodworking, leatherworking, home ec, and a typing and shorthand class. There were boys and girls in all the classes. In high school we had shop/automotive that we could take. I don’t know if girls were in the class, but I feel very sure if one wanted to be they would have been allowed. They had apprenticeships they would line you up with also, so you could leave school early and work in a shop and I think you got school credit, but I’m not sure. At minimum it was an acceptable reason to leave school early.

My school also had cosmetology, which once completed you could take the state test and be licensed and ready to work.

We also had accounting, 4 languages, psychology, and some AP classes. We also had a child something or other class, we had a day care in school, and we basically were like assistant to the teacher. I did that for a while, and then eventually I helped in an elementary school instead.

We had all sorts of great options.

I graduated high school in ‘85.

Sounds like 10 years made a hell of a difference, @JLeslie! In the end, the typing class I took in middle school seemed to hold me in the greatest stead when looking for work.

I actually never took shop but had home ec. High school I took most of the vocational classes just to have enough hours to not graduate too early. I still use what I learned in “turf and grounds management” frequently. Never did get to take shop though.

@Dutchess_III My dad kind of insisted I took the typing. I think a lot of people saw it as a girl, secretarial, thing, but my dad told me over and over I’ll need typing for college and work and pushed me to take it. I’m glad he did.

I know people who graduated my same year who did not have the same experience at all in school. Home ec was just for the girls, and boys took other classes. Most of them were from the Midwest and South, but I’m not saying we should paint those two regions with a broad brush, I think it varied a lot.

I took woodshop in middle school. Home ec was offered in middle and high school but I never took it. It didn’t matter as I ended up learnig most of that stuff from my parents. (Just for comparison, I had to teach most of my college roommates how to iron, cook, load the dishwasher properly, etc. They never learned how to do any of that).

I met the love of my life in 8th grade typing class! He sat next to me. There were just as many boys as girls. I type 65–70 wpm.

The only things I took away from Home Ec that I remember, was an ability to thread a sewing machine. Today I absolutely loath sewing,but I can surely do it. Well, except that I finally set my sewing machine out on the curb about a year ago, with a note that said, “I don’t need this kind of negativity in my life.” It quickly disappeared.

Also, Home Ec gave me baby pizzas and fudge.

I sew better than my wife thanks to boy scouts and home ec

This is the last thing I sewed. I rebuilt the back end of our pop up. I reused things like the window screen / sipper, and the sides. I am not skilled enough to make an actual pop up back end, so we just used that bed frame as an outdoor table. Quite handy actually, for primitive camping when you have no picnic tables.

As a senior, I took a class called “Bachelor Foods.”

In 6th grade (during the 90’s) everyone in my school took an “exploratory” class where you rotated through various modules every 6 weeks such that everyone would have all of them, but in a different order. One module was technology where you got to do cool applied science stuff (I designed and made a wooden car and raced others in the class; I also got to cut together a mix tape for my own “radio station,” some kids did model rockets, etc.). Another unit was typing. There was also a home economics-type class where I learned basic needlepoint, how to cook donuts and sew a pillow. It was actually pretty fun and practical.

I’ve heard needle point mentioned a couple of times. Who the hell does needle point??

Guy here. I took Home Economics in Junior High (early 80s). I learned to sew and made a stuffed hippo (whom I loved very much). I still can sew a button because of it.

Home Ec I learned to thread a machine and make a bobbin and sew on a button. I also learned how to make pasta, butter, cheese, and bread from scratch. I actually had made pasta from scratch before with my mom, but none of the other things mentioned. The class was useful, and when we cooked we got to eat what we made, which we all liked.

Guy here, Typing in the 1950’s in Junior High. Didn’t need Home Economics I was oldest of 5 kids and was cooking at 9 years old and at 11 years old; I was the one to make spaghetti sauce from scratch for the family.

Who taught you to make spaghetti from scratch @Tropical_Willie?

Watched my mom and changed the spices and herbs, she liked my version better.

I was doing a knock-out chili by the time I was 14. A father of one of my FB friends remembers eating my chili in the 1960’s at a block party and has commented on it couple of times.

Everybody was required to take both shop and home ec. in my middle school.

In high school, there was a more advanced shop class offered that I didn’t even know existed until my last semester senior year (i.e. too late to sign up). I was bummed I didn’t get to take it.