WAYYY OT--Where's Shop Class????

[Bonnie2001]

Some schools even have realistic (electronic) baby dolls that the kids (both girls and boys) take home for a day and have to care for properly, dolls which record how they are handled and so on..

We have that in our school. I got to take the doll baby home for a weekend, which meant I couldn't go anywhere without taking the doll along. Ruined my weekend and now I don't think I ever want to have babies!

 

[Terre]

I'd certainly agree that things like handling bank accounts, tax, budgeting and so on ought to be covered at school for those kids who won't cover them at home.

Apparently the local High School does have a mandatory class on things like balancing a checkbook but many kids are so used to just plugging numbers into a calculator by then that it makes no sense to them. I've heard this so far from 2 recent HS grads who found the class easy and were amazed by their classmates problems.

 

[Terre]

We have that in our school. I got to take the doll baby home for a weekend, which meant I couldn't go anywhere without taking the doll along. Ruined my weekend and now I don't think I ever want to have babies!

Sounds like they need to make that mandatory. It might cut down on the teen pregnancy rate. Being a school kid who has a baby quite often isn't good for either the young mother or the child or the grand parents. Sometimes the latter have to raise the baby as the mother refuses to do so.

 

[Bonnie2001]

Sounds like they need to make that mandatory. It might cut down on the teen pregnancy rate. Being a school kid who has a baby quite often isn't good for either the young mother or the child or the grand parents....

Well only last year a girl at school had a baby and she was only just turned 15! She is still attending school and her mother minds the baby during the day. But that girl isn't ever going to college, she will just do the mandatory rest of term and have to go be a mother and lose out on the years she could be working or travelling.

 

[Terre]

Exactly. You, on the other hand, have more freedom to decide your future.

 

[Pendraia]

We have woodwork and cooking as electives for our secondary students. The cooking also includes growing own vegetables and serving food restaurant style and they have cooked and served meals to the local rotary club.

In regard to tech schools we have in Victoria just had an announcement that they are reintroducing them.

Tech Schools

It was thought that TAFE's covered that area but it looks like they think we need tech schools back...

 

[Pendraia]

Well only last year a girl at school had a baby and she was only just turned 15! She is still attending school and her mother minds the baby during the day. But that girl isn't ever going to college, she will just do the mandatory rest of term and have to go be a mother and lose out on the years she could be working or travelling.

Being a single parent is hard work but it doesn't always hold you back. I was a single parent (just before I turned 21, 10 days) but I bought my own house at 23, always worked until I got married and had my younger 2 kids, then went back to uni at 43 and trained to be a teacher. It is very hard work raising a child on your own but it does depend on mindset how well you do also...

 

[Bonnie2001]

Good for you Pen, you accomplished a lot under those circumstances. Not every girl would be able to do all that.

 

[Pendraia]

It taught me how to be strong...that's for sure. It's much easier with a partner.