"They still have Home Ec??" Um...yeah.

The above question is something I hear so often now that I can see it coming from a mile away. When I meet strangers and we get into the "what we do" conversation, and I say, "I'm a Home Ec teacher," their eyes get wide, and there it comes: "They still have Home Ec??" Then, 99% of the time, they follow it with, "Can boys take it???" Really? It's 2011. Sigh.

I teach 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Home Economics, but it's actually not called that anymore--it's called "Family and Consumer Sciences"--FACS. (Although I have seen many a kid write "FACTS" when they're labeling their notebooks. Ha.) They had to update the name I guess to make it all 21st-century sounding so that kids won't automatically assume they'll be transported back to 1950 the moment they step in my room (although I'D love that, I suppose the kids wouldn't appreciate it).

Yes, we cook. Yes, we sew. But all in a very "modern" way. But we also learn about resource management, finances, child development and child care, nutrition, leading a healthy lifestyle, fashion, textiles, and much, much more.

Myth: Boys hate sewing and think it's for girls.
Truth: I'd say 99% of my boys are excellent and enthusiastic sewers who are sometimes better at it than the girls.

In any case, I want to share the end result of my first real "nightmare" sewing project. My 7th Grade Project Runway students just spent the last 2 months in the Battle of the Boxers:

(That's me, of course.)

Though not a raging battle for me, these kids shed blood (literally) and perhaps even some tears and loooooooots of anger before these were done. We kind of hit a snag halfway through the project. Without getting into details, we were missing a step due to a triad of reasons:

1.) The written directions...SUCKED. Plain and simple. The important and essential step was, quite simply, absent from the directions.

2.) Though I figured out the step when making my sample pair, I forgot about it when it came to starting the project with the kids. I hate myself for this. But it was something that was not in the written directions, so there was confusion all around.

3) The kids WOULD NOT GIVE THE DIRECTIONS, of any kind, A CHANCE. I spent hours making a Power Point with pictures and videos of EVERY. SINGLE. STEP. for them and most of them didn't give it a chance. The missing step is actually in the Power Point, but just not clearly, because I wasn't given it clearly. I did have one girl, bless her soul, who figured it out all on her own and didn't have to fix anything when we discovered the error. I said, "M, how did you know what to do?" and she said, "I read the Power Point. I can read." GOLD STAR, RIGHT THERE.

In any case, the majority of the students took it well, seam ripped a little and now I've got finished projects flowing in. They are very proud when they're done and actually have a wearable garment. We're hoping to have a "boxer day" when we will all wear them at once (over leggings, jeans, etc., of course.)

Garment features:

-Stress
-Annoyance
-Gahh

...and an elastic waistband