Bring Back Domestic Science

Bring back “Domestic Science” to our schools

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

For decades British schools have taught what in later and latter years came to be known as “Domestic Science”, though primarily as “cooking” and “home making” to the girls. Only in later years, before the subject was abolished, was it also compulsory for boys, as indeed it should be.

Today most girls leaving school, and the boys definitely, have no idea how to cook a meal for one or so a family, from scratch, and while the home has to take a great of blame for this, the school system too must shoulder a fair amount of it.

Having not gong through the school system anywhere – thank G-d – I cannot say how much on other domestic skills the “Domestic Science” curriculum contained, such as sewing, etc., but it should and boys equally should learn how to sew and how to repair clothes as should girls.

It would do good for the boys that see sewing as sissy and as beneath them to remember and consider that most top tailors and fashion designers are not women but men, and men's outfitters have always been. And no, most were and are not gay.

For boys, in the time when “Domestic Science” was, basically, the sole domain of girls, there were the DIY lessons, from which girls were, in the main, excluded. But neither exclusion should be and such subjects should be open to,(and even compulsory for, both sexes.

Both cooking and sewing, and other, let's call them “domestic crafts”, must be taught to both sexes and the same must be for “woodwork”, as it was, I think, called, or technology and such nowadays, so that both are capable of cooking a meal, looking after themselves in that way, repair their clothes and if this be only sewing on a button, or fix an electric plug, etc. to build a bookcase from scratch or even scrap wood.

Those skills will, of that I am certain, become, once again, extremely important as things are about to change significantly once we have come to the final end of cheap oil and we may have to be able then, alone for reasons of costs, be able to repair things again and to make things for ourselves, and this includes growing our own food at home, where possible, and to make meals from such home-grown food.

All those skills must, in fact and reality, become part of the curriculum of a new “Domestic Science” or “Domestic Skills” education in our schools. But the home has to pay its part here too.

So, lets bring back “Domestic Science” to our schools and let it starts at elementary school already.

© 2010