2020 Fashion on the Ration Challenge

Baileys_Babe

PipneyJane said:

What is notable about the 1980s in the UK is that children were no longer taught the basics in school, since "Home Economics" was viewed as sexist.  Australia went down a different route; the boys in my class were all taught to knit, sew and cook, while the girls also had to do compulsory woodwork and metalwork, but not here.  Here the subjects were dropped or replaced with "technology" where nobody learned anything useful, like how to cook.  We're still living with that legacy today.  

I was educated in England in the 1980s, all pupils (male and female) were taught Home Economics which included core cookery skills, nutrition, how to meal plan, budget, make the most of the leftovers and much much more. We also had lessons in hand and machine sewing, embroidery, I don't remember knitting at school and I think I would as I still struggle a lot. Everyone had woodwork and metalwork lessons for 3 years, which I loved. In addition, we had lessons on building and repairing electronic equipment which included using soldering irons amongst other equipment.

What they did fail to teach us about was grammar, punctuation and spelling.

PipneyJane

Baileys_Babe said:

PipneyJane said:

What is notable about the 1980s in the UK is that children were no longer taught the basics in school, since "Home Economics" was viewed as sexist.  Australia went down a different route; the boys in my class were all taught to knit, sew and cook, while the girls also had to do compulsory woodwork and metalwork, but not here.  Here the subjects were dropped or replaced with "technology" where nobody learned anything useful, like how to cook.  We're still living with that legacy today.  

I was educated in England in the 1980s, all pupils (male and female) were taught Home Economics which included core cookery skills, nutrition, how to meal plan, budget, make the most of the leftovers and much much more. We also had lessons in hand and machine sewing, embroidery, I don't remember knitting at school and I think I would as I still struggle a lot. Everyone had woodwork and metalwork lessons for 3 years, which I loved. In addition, we had lessons on building and repairing electronic equipment which included using soldering irons amongst other equipment.

What they did fail to teach us about was grammar, punctuation and spelling.

I know I was making sweeping generalisations and the situation changed for the worse in the 1990's.

Re grammar, etc, in the 1990's, I worked with a secretary who didn't know the difference between "companies" plural and "company's" possessive, even though every 3rd or 4th letter she had to type up every day was to Companies House.  (I used to have to deal with the fallout.)

- Pip

joedenise

My girls attended a grammar school in the 1980s and neither of them did Home Economics so didn't learn to cook at school.  I taught them basic stuff at home - the eldest, even now, still isn't interested but luckily she's found a partner who is a chef so has no need to cook, LOL!  Before she met him she and her daughter more or less lived on pasta!  The youngest however is quite adventurous with cooking and will give anything and everything a go so of course has a much better diet.  

I think the local comprehensive all the pupils learned both Home Ec and Woodwork etc so in that respect had a better education.  Neither of mine wanted to go to Uni so both went into Apprenticeships which was pretty unheard of for grammar girls back then!

Baileys_Babe

I wish me and my peers had been taught grammar, punctuation and spelling in primary school, it is something I am aware causes difficulties. What pupils were taught seemed to vary widely between schools and across the country. I have no idea if that is still the case or if the national curriculum has standardized everything.

Laura_Elsewhere

I was at a state secondary in Scotland, 1980-87, the best in Scotland at the time and widely regarded as academically easily as good as any of the posh fee-paying public schools.

Everyone, boys and girls, had Sewing and Cooking, Metalwork, Woodwork and Technical Drawing, for the whole of 1st and 2nd year. Everyone also had Latin... 

But it has to be said, I learned how to lower a lever to use a pillar-drill set up for me by the teacher; I didn't learn how to drill a hole in a wall safely and accurately. I learnt how to stand behind the others as my group in HE made some food or other that I couldn't see, couldn't hear properly, wasn't interested in and never had any active involvement in. They put us into six groups and basically one or two people grabbed all the actual cooking, leaving the rest of us distant and disinterested observers. I don't know what the sewing teaching was like as the teacher took one look at my abilities aged 11 and said I could just bring in whatever I liked and work on that, so I did. 

So although they probably meant well, it was less useful than it could have been!

Laura_Elsewhere

Baileys_Babe said:

I wish me and my peers had been taught grammar, punctuation and spelling in primary school, it is something I am aware causes difficulties. What pupils were taught seemed to vary widely between schools and across the country. I have no idea if that is still the case or if the national curriculum has standardized everything.

It certainly varied in my young day - until August 1979 I was at primary school in England where formal grammar lessons were done in 4th year Juniors, ie last year of primary. I left at the end of 3rd year Juniors. 
I arrived into the Scottish system, and went into P7, ie the last year of Primary, to find that formal grammar lessons had been the year before in P6. 
Same with Cycling Proficiency so I never got my badge for that either!  

I am lucky though because I grew up on lots of old children's books, which are all pretty well-written so I ended up knowing when wording looked and felt right, even if I still don't really know the names for most things. 

I think a lot of people get very tied up in worrying about grammar and punctuation, and it feels like it's much more difficult. Mostly, so far as I can tell, it's a few things that crop up over and again: 

- their/ they're/ there - well, the easy one is the places. Here and There and Where: all of them have HERE in them. So if it's a place you mean, you know it must be t-here, and not one of the other two. Of the remaining two, the apostrophe either means "belonging to" or it is for missing letters: you know that "they're" is "they are" so it is easy to just look for the Sign of the Missing Letter, so to speak That just leaves one left, "their" and only one meaning left, "belonging to them", so they must go together. 
- me and my friend went to town/ between you and I and the lamp-post...  - Just remove the other person and see how it sounds: "me went to town"? Definitely not right! "I went to town"? Yes, that sounds fine so you can add your friend back in for "My friend and I went to town". 
- apostrophes: they only ever do two jobs, and NEVER mean a plural, which is the most common mistake. 
1. missing letters, like in *they're* and *don't*. 
2. indicating possession, usually with an *s*, but not always: Jane's book, John's ball, James' toys - although James's toys IS also correct, so don't worry about that. 
And the final really common one (I'll get off the soapbox in a minute, honest ) is the *its/ it's* confusion, which is completely understandable as it isn't the most obvious. You just have to remember it as a one-off, I'm afraid, that *it's* ALWAYS means *it is* and NEVER means belonging-to-it. It's one of those things  

So when you see someone who has typed learn't or mean't, it's because they are vaguely muddling it up with don't and can't - but learnt and meant are actually older versions of the past tense - I mean, I meant... I learn, I learnt... just the same as I meaned or I learned, but for reasons known only to history, we kept the older version. Some verbs have either - I dreamed or I dreamt. But *learn't* and *mean't* are always wrong, and the two are very commonly muddled! 

I hope that hasn't come across as lecturing - I used to run little 5-minute sessions at the end of lectures when I taught on post-grad science classes, because even people with full degrees doing Master's courses still couldn't manage there/they're/their correctly when they arrived...! 

joedenise

I'm fine with punctuation and grammar but you have explained it really well Laura, much better than I could have done.

TwibbleDee

Laura_Elsewhere said:

I am fascinated by spinning, but in such a tiny flat with so much stuff already in it, I just don't dare try it! I am amazed when friends post photos of miles of fine, even yarn they have spun... it's incredible to me that it isn't just all lumpy uneven suff and only a few feet of it, but no, give them a good tv drama and they'll spin a mile of laceweight! 

Drop spindle.  Won’t take up all your room.  Heck, I might even have one hanging around that I send you.  Brand new, never been used.  

On the topic of cooking - we knew how to make mac & cheese from the box, tunamac (macaroni noodles with cream of mushroom soup & tuna), spaghetti, goulash, scrambled eggs, etc., by the time we were 10 or so.  At some point, Mom had us each pick a new recipe to make each week so we’d be learning how to read the recipe, measure, new skills, etc.  We’re doing the same thing with the kids.  They cook on Mondays and Tuesday, generally.  

I am a mean, mean, evil person who makes them pick from the keto cookbooks, but they haven’t complained about it yet (and yes, they know how to cook pasta and make mashed potatoes).  They know that I’m trying to eat healthier and that they aren’t allowed to feed me things that will try to kill me (nightshades and gluten), but if boy wants to make pepper steak, he can make pepper steak - I just have to know ahead of time so I can be prepared to make my own dinner.  I got a new cookbook on Tuesday, and they both have next week’s meals planned from it - chicken tenders with green bean fries, and hamburger steaks with onion gravy and cabbage noodles.

PollyWollyDoodle

I did woodwork, metalwork, sewing and home economics at school in England in the 1970s that Laura, you have put your finger on it exactly. I learned to use equipment set up by the teacher, I would love to be able to do simple woodwork or hang pictures without making three holes, two of which are wrong!   The sewing class consisted of us designing something, making a stencil, printing it onto white sheet fabric etc - fun to do but I don’t remember ever making anything else out the eventual fabric. Luckily I had learned to sew at home. Home economics was not much cop either, my mother was disgusted when we were told to take in a packet sponge mix! I think the idea was to make a real sponge and then compare the two. I do remember the Home Ec teacher showing us how to iron a tray cloth and fill a coffee percolator. I have not needed these skills in later life. 

With regard to “disposable society”, we used to make our own clothes when I was a teenager because it was cheaper. My mum knitted all our jumpers for the same reason. I value handmade stuff because of the work that’s gone into it and because it is individual, but I think it was in the 1980s that I began to realise that it wasn’t cheap to make clothes anymore. If you’re hard up, it’s always going to be easier to go to Pr*mark or similar. While those clothes may be cheap in terms of currency, they cost us all dearly.

Baileys_Babe

Thank you @Laura_Elsewhere for taking the time to explain. I knew some of the things you mentioned but you have done it succinctly.

It is interesting to hear how many at school were taught how to use equipment but not how to set it up. We were taught how to thread a sewing machine, adjust the tension, wind the bobbin etc. In metalwork, I can remember the pillar drill being demonstrated and everyone having a turn, then the teacher demonstrated how to set the machine up and we each had a turn setting it up. The first few lessons must have felt very boring at the time but we learnt skills and then we were set projects to utilise the skills.

The first thing we were taught to sew in the machine was an apron, followed by hand sewing our initials on the bib. The next project was a rolled pencil case. No idea what we made after that.