Bring Back Home Ec and Shop

Pamela Paul, To Prepare Kids for the Future, Bring Back Shop and Home Ec, NYTimes, 11.12.23.

Alas:

The kind of classes that used to cut into desk time have largely been squeezed out of the schedule. No more woodworking or shop, automotive arts, typing or home economics — classes that taught skills better learned through active doing rather than passive learning.

I enjoyed those classes, a lot. For me it was art, shop, and mechanical drawing. Art? Everyone should learn how to draw and paint, in general principle, and with analog materials before digital. Same with shop: build stuff with your hands. Mechanical drawing too, I loved it, and it's been very useful. But let's get back to the article.

But there’s an argument for bringing back home ec and shop, not only for students who may be better served by opting out of college, but also for those students bent on white-collar life. These are the kinds of “adulting” skills many kids no longer learn at home, whether it’s because their working parents are too busy or their extracurriculars too onerous. And the benefits of these classes — using one’s hands, working with real-world materials, collaborating offscreen, taking risks — extend well beyond the classroom.

First, to state the obvious: Kids need a break. The advantages of getting up from one’s desk — standing, walking around, going outside, taking 15-minute breaks — are well known to adults, especially for people who spend much of their days on screens. Yet we don’t extend the same courtesy to schoolchildren. An hour or two each week grappling with wood planks or mixing batter can leaven a long and monotonous school day.

Second, kids learn from physical work just as they do from mental labor, and when the two are interwoven, academic learning can also improve. Moving our bodies and letting our minds wander bring renewed focus. According to popular educational theory, some kids are what educators call tactile learners — they do especially well with a kinesthetic instruction that involves actively doing over passively absorbing. Schools apply these ideas to early childhood education, with its emphasis on sand tables and “hands-on learning.” But older students, particularly boys and kids with attention difficulties, also benefit.

Home ec and shop skills especially make sense in light of current environmental and health challenges. For kids who wear fast fashion but care about climate and overconsumption, it’s worth knowing how to darn a sock or patch a hole. Likewise, in a country with skyrocketing obesity and high consumption of processed foods, learning how to make healthy, inexpensive meals is important.

Paul goes on to point out that such classes also have opportunities for collaborative work and reward patience. 

For some idea of the range of things that could be done in a contemporary version of these classes, watch a bunch of Adam Savage videos.