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Tag Archives: Brenda Tobias

Home Economics 2.0

06 Sep

Recently I’ve wondered what has become of Home Economics.  Not the actual classes I was subjected to (more on that later) but the concept itself.  I’ve tossed the query out to various friends and acquaintances and have received murmurs of “budget cuts” in reply.  Hardly empirical data I know, but today’s opinion piece provides confirmation of our suspicions.

Now I would never extol the virtues of tedious sewing projects which only resulted in tears and an ancient teacher so frustrated by my stellar ineptitude, she used the my arm as a pincushion in an attempt to make her point.  I would never suggest someone else endure the humiliation of laboring over one simple skirt for an entire semester while the rest of the class created the equivalent of the Spring Line of Thomas Jefferson Junior High School.  I would never wish upon anyone the hollow sense of accomplishment that comes with an end of year unveiling of a skirt that no longer fit.

But cooking, and nutrition?  Well that’s a horse of a different color.

I think we can all agree, we’ve got a little weight issue in this country.  There is nothing like learning about the origin of food, nutrition, and cooking to aid in the decision process involved in eating.  If that weren’t reason alone to re-imagine Home Economics classes, consider for a moment the inherent math and science lessons to be had in growing and preparing food.  Chlorophyll, banana cultivation, baking chemistry, weights and measures…Years of lesson plans are just waiting to be delivered in the most entertaining (BAM!) delicious ways.

There has never been a better time to consider this curriculum.  My family (of origin) sat down to dinner together every single night.  Lunches were consumed at home, or were packed in a brown bag (note: mashed banana and peanut butter on whole wheat really needs the protection of a proper lunchbox) weekend breakfasts were a family affair.  There was no junk food (except for birthday celebrations) and nutrition was often discussed.  Again, without any scientific proof, I’m willing to say that the majority of children are not experiencing their meals in this manner today.

Unlike technology in the classroom (we’ll save debating the return on investment of teaching students power point, for another day) the teaching of Home Economics need not be an astronomical financial investment.  Yes, the title “Home Economics” is a bit cloying, and does conjure apron-y imagery.  But with the modern interpretation of say; Domestic Engineering, we can begin to imagine how making education (specifically math and science) personal, makes all the sense in the world.

 
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Posted by on September 6, 2011 in Education

 

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LOVE! Labor’s Loss

02 Sep

I have never particularly bought into the zeitgeist of summer, so it should come as no surprise that I feel hallow on this Labor Day’s Eve.

I have made my lemonade out of the lemons of summer fashion opportunities, embracing cotton brights to the point of resembling said lemons.  I have purchased belts in a feeble attempt at heat resistant layering and visual interest.  I have alternated straw hats as if they were wigs as a stab towards accessorizing.  In other words, I have made my peace.

So what is it exactly that has me giddy as a school girl this hallowed eve?  It is the silver lining on the cloud, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the light at the end of the tunnel that is cool weather.  It is just a matter of weeks now that people will have to start wearing actual clothes.  That’s right.  Set your watches dear reader.  Soon the bathing suit cover-up will go back in the drawer (or mercifully, in the beach bag) and off the streets of New York.  See-through blouses will be packed away; of course not before we share a word or two about see-through blouses.  Are you that proud of your bra?  Why?  Did you make it yourself?  And please don’t try and tell me that is not your bra, it is a bathing suit top.  Think about which dresser drawer you keep your bathing suits?  Where in the department store do they sell bathing suits?  Are you going to suggest that the visual merchandisers of America have it wrong, and bathing suits are in fact clothing?  Well, than ask yourself; “what am I wearing UNDER my bathing suit?”  If it’s touching your personals, it IS personal!

With that first cool breeze will also come the realization that one’s shorts are very very short.  Newsflash: clothes should cover where the cheek meets the leg.  And maybe, just maybe, if we have all been very good this summer, the cool autumnal breezes may banish the paper-thin white legging.  Dare to dream.

 
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Posted by on September 2, 2011 in Style

 

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Because I Said So, That’s Why

31 Aug

There is now legislation (in New Jersey) to combat bullying.  In schools.

I know, I too would be ready to cheer from the rooftops if we, as a people, had decreed that picking on persons or groups perceived as weaker than one’s own is an abomination.  What a world, what a world.

But no, the legislation I reference is only about schoolchildren.  There is nothing magical in the legislation.  It is exactly the kind of rules, forms, standards and bureaucracy one would expect.  There will be training for personnel, awareness campaigns, et cetera.  I am less interested in the minutia of legalizing common sense than looking down the road that led us to this point.

Why is bullying such an issue today?  (I am making the leap that bullying is in fact an “issue” as why else would people need to legislate?)  I think we can all agree that not much has changed about the physiological development of children over the past, say, 50 years?  Children have not turned into little Rambo like creatures fortified by steroid rich lunchables.  If anything, national childhood obesity rates would suggest that children have become less physically threatening in recent years (we are not including the threat of sitting on someone smaller than oneself.)  It is safe to assume that any change, on the part of the children, is psychological/emotional.

There is a traditional dichotomy that has been continuously eroding over past recent years: grown-ups were in charge, and all children were not gifted.

No doubt we all agree that children are not little adults.  They are not mentally or physically equipped to be mini-adults.  In fact, that is why parents were invented.  Minimally, parents help guide young minds in impulse control, decision making and the like.  Good parents help children grow into responsible and compassionate adults.

The child factor in this equation is far more troubling to me.  Passive or narcissistic parenting can be changed or augmented with positive interactions with aunts, uncles, teachers and the like.  But teaching a child that they are the center of the universe is cruel.  Not only does this perspective do nothing to help a child learn the skills necessary to be a functioning adult, it is just mean.  It is false advertising, plain and simple.  Not only is it not possible for any person to actually be the center of the universe, but what do you think will happen when he/she inevitably discovers the truth?  Is there any wonder that mental health services are at their breaking point in colleges and universities across the nation?

When we have to legislate adults to intervene when they see children misbehaving, we have a problem.  When did it get so scary for adults to embrace their own (innate) authority?  When did we decide that raising emotional terrorists is good parenting?  When exactly did we decide that the most ill-equipped of our society are in charge?  Legislating in loco parentis in the schools?  This is only the tip of the iceberg.

 
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Posted by on August 31, 2011 in Childhood

 

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Living Alone

29 Aug

Have you heard that the most coveted metropolitan apartments are those with 3 or more bedrooms?  If so, did you, like me, conjure images of bloated blended families, bedrooms crammed with same gender minors?  How quaint you and I are.  The bedroom explosion is not due to excessive procreation or bunches of newly made families.  This new real estate holy grail’s raison d’etre is so that no child should ever have to share a room.  There are a handful of very legitimate reasons that children should have separate rooms (ex., gender differences, disabilities, etc.) but we’re not talking about those right now. We are talking about small people who do not share a bedroom and sometimes not even a bathroom(!) with others.

Ordinarily I care not how people choose to fritter away their resources.  I do care however, when I can connect the dots between those choices and how they will/do affect society at large.

A wonderful piece was written today about college roommate selection.  The author mourns the loss of randomness of the process and bemoans the new (internet generated) self selection of like-minded roommates.  I share with him the loss of no longer leaving room for serendipity in one’s (young) life.  I have observed what I consider even more troubling, and that is the rise of the “single.”  When I was a freshman, our (cave) dorms were populated with doubles and triples.  I think there might have been a handful of singles, available at a premium, stashed in some undesirable old-people (a.k.a. upperclassmen) dorm.  Some people came to college with a friend from high school.  Those duos seemed to be equally split between choosing to room together and choosing to take their spin at the wheel.  Eight of us shared a living area, 20+ of us shared a common area and 100+ of us shared a television room.  And to any reader under 25, YES, we had indoor plumbing.

The last time I was on a college campus (much more recently than is normative) there was communal gathering, but no actual communing that I could discern.  Not surprising, the parallel play runs amok on campus.  Walking, and eating together still occurs, but all while the participants (electronically) communicate with others.  Single rooms are no longer the outliers, and there are more “grab and go” food stalls than dining rooms.  I have no issue with progress (technical or otherwise) but I do have an issue with isolationism.

Bert and Ernie have been negotiating shared space since the dawn of (children’s television workshop) time.  They compromised on lights-out among other grave points of conflict.  I wonder if the recent (abhorrent) discourse about the sexual orientation of (non-genital equipped puppet) characters, is a sign of the times.  Do we no longer even recognize the intent of these characters? Is sharing of space so foreign we must assign romantic intent?  What are we now teaching our toddler by giving them their own room?  What lowered social expectation do we have for our college bound adolescent when we approve a single?

Are these then the young people who enter the workforce (via the subway where they have sat with their legs splayed or stood at the door) to play their music audibly, eat (pungent) foods at their desk, and emanate noise through their attire and scent through their health and beauty aides?  Do they grow up to view public space as private, demonstrating this belief system by; crinkling plastic bags in theatres, strolling down the middle of sidewalks with double-wide strollers, driving without burden of directional signals, etc.?  Perhaps not.  Perhaps I am making a flawed leap of logic.  But leaping aside, I am at a loss how not teaching children/adolescents to live well with others is progress.

 
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Posted by on August 29, 2011 in Childhood

 

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The Audacity of Dopes

26 Aug

Reports of bad human behavior are nothing new, particularly here.  But once in awhile there are behaviors so novel, so compelling, they really do warrant a tale.

Picture if you will a 250 year old inn, nestled in the Berkshires.  It is a grand home festooned with an expansive porch, (blessedly outfitted daily with afternoon tea.)  The cultivated gardens burst forth under the watchful eye of a colonial era church, which adorably bongs out the hour.  Inside, there is an extensive library and dozens of board games and puzzles lining the walls of an enormous living room.

There is a sitting room at the entrance to the dining room.  Guests gather after a groggy trip to the coffee bar.  They await their gourmet 3-course breakfast while perusing the inn’s newspapers.  There is a very quiet rustic elegance to the inn.  Guests are quiet yet friendly.

So there I was, coffee in hand, alone in the sitting room, looking fruitlessly for the front section of the paper.  (For those who are not familiar with news delivered on “paper” the front section is the meat of the issue.)  I looked high, I looked low.  The inn manager was engaged in the search as well.  An hour and three cups of coffee later, I had made my way through every other section of the New York paper, the entirety of the local paper, 2 catalogs of cotton drapey clothes and successfully ignored the towering stack of Gourmet magazines.  By this time I was joined by others looking for the paper as well.  It was then that a woman walked out of the dining room (with her companion) holding what looked suspiciously like the front section of the newspaper under her arm.  I called out a modulated; “excuse me, is that the front section of the paper?”  Her answer?  “Yes, I’m not done with it.”  My look must have expressed what my sputtering brain could not.  She looked at me and with just a hint of sarcasm (yet, no apparent irony) said; “why?  is it yours?”  She then went upstairs to her room.  With the communal paper.

Now I admit, I didn’t even consider using my indoor voice when commenting with my fellow aghast guests.  I think I might have even been a wee snide.

Look, we all want what we want when we want it.  That is the human condition.  But sometimes those impulses erode into truly antisocial behavior (like hiding a newspaper at your breakfast table so that no one but you can have it and you’ll be assured your private bedroom date with it after your repast.) But I have to ask myself, if one is that anti-social or anti-communal, what is one doing in an inn?  Surely there are 5-star hotels or campers which would better serve.

 
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Posted by on August 26, 2011 in Cultural Critique

 

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