fighting for FACS

Good news!! I graduated on Friday. That's me--a diploma carrying, funny hat wearing FAMILY AND CONSUMER SCIENCES EDUCATION GRADUATE. I spent the Friday night with my old roommates, and then went to my last day at my college job on Saturday. They threw me a party and bought me some signs for my classroom. It was very nice. Saturday night, my parents drove me back with the van AND the truck crazy-full of furniture and stuff that I'd been storing at their house. Good news--it's all organized and I'm not sleeping on the floor. I don't have any living room furniture, but that's ok---I don't spend much time at home. I have two bookshelves against one wall, and in between those, I have two end-tables that my grandmother gave me, and in between those, I have one folding chair that my parents loaned me. I like that chair. One day I'll get a couch. Yes. My life is exciting. I'm saving up for a couch. (But a kitchenaid stand mixer comes first!!)

Anyways, I came back to school on Monday and had district in-service all day. It was super boring--because we'd gone over ALL the same information last week in new-teacher orientation. After it was over, I came back to my classroom which was STILL a mess from when I'd unloaded all the cupboards and I only had an hour or so to work in my room before we had the district picnic. I got a lot of free food yesterday. That was exciting. I also talked to my counterpart at the other middle school. We spent a good two hours talking about what we do in our classes. She's trained as a health teacher and got the FACS job by chance. We were talking about how the superintendent feels about the FACS program. Apparently, he pretty much wants it out of the schools. He's all about technology and getting students to be on the cutting edge of things. I'm in a district that has a lot of money--and that's good, it enables us to do cutting edge sorts of things. But as a FACS teacher, I feel like there are things that are important that AREN'T technology. Teaching them can be enhanced by technology, and even the act of doing these things can be enhanced by technology. But the subjects taught in Family and Consumer Sciences are LIFE SKILLS that will help my students get through every day--not just get to college. College students have to eat. Non-college students have to eat. We all have to wear clothes. We have families and need to know appropriate and inappropriate ways to interact. We used to live in a world where these skills would have been passed on from parent-to-child (mother to daughter, typically). But that is no longer the case. We have to learn it SOMEWHERE. I think a big part of the reason that we have a crazy society with more abusive families, overweight people, people in debt, etc is that we don't know these BASIC skills. We've overlooked them in favor of technology and advancing ourselves in careers.

Sigh. It's rough. I feel like I'm going to have to stand up for Home Economics during my time here. And in order to have any credibility, I need to have a good program. I have a lot to learn.

~The Teacher