The Invaluable Lessons I Learned From Home Economics Classes
Was it wise to remove them from school curriculums?
The reward for finally filing away a pile of papers that had been accumulating for months was finding a treasure from my school days.
I didn’t keep a lot of my schoolwork, but one exercise book that I did was my sewing class one.
In Form 1 and 2 — the equivalent of Grades 7 and 8 — sewing and cooking classes were mandatory. Home Economics was the highlight of the week.
The lessons
In sewing, we first had to pass our machine driver's license, which consisted of navigating the threadless needle over lines, zigzags, and circles drawn on a page. I was pretty adept with the straight lines but all over the place with the circles. Thank goodness t wasn’t a real road that I was navigating.
Next was learning how to thread the needle, wind the bobbin and troubleshooting when the needle broke or the tension was off.
Our first real project was learning how to make a simple bag using basic skills such as pinning and basting before sewing and pressing. The second practical project was making a shirt that required more complex skills; pinning the pattern onto the material respecting grain and fold requirements…
