Hard lesson we must admit now

originally posted by: JAGStorm
If this pandemic has taught us anything it is that we have let our society go too far astray.


#1 we must bring back home Ec and shop class to all schools starting in middle school.
I am appalled at the number of adults that can’t sew a basic square for a mask, or a single button.

The bulk of our food must be grown and processed here. Sending chicken to China for processing is nuts and dangerous.

I think some people had a rude awakening when they realized how little they cook at home. I hope cooking skills are reinvigorated. This will help with health in our society too.

Child rearing & discipline. Looks like it wasn’t the teachers fault you have a brat! I wonder if this quarantine has opened peoples eyes that it is so beneficial to have a parent at home.

The number one thing I hope this has changed in people is their personal finance. I learned that hard lesson in 08. Did anyone see the story about NBA stars living paycheck to paycheck?

As with everything, nothing is all bad. This pandemic will shine a light on hard truths we have been lying to ourselves about.

S&F

My wife may disagree, but her ability to manage our young daughter's time has been indispensable. She's tearing her hair out, but I often remind her when we hitched up aeons ago, our unwritten agreement was that eventually, I'd procure the bread, she would feed it to the kidos. I think mainly it's the isolation and inability to socially interact with friends that has her frustrated.

I'd like to add that it's been eye opening to me that our daughter's teachers are paradoxically both uber skilled at managing the behavioral outbursts of a room full of 10 year olds, yet seem not very adept at setting a curriculum in math that is "by the book" and easy to follow along with. Perhaps due to this common core revolution in educational format?

In my day, for writin' and 'rithmatic, we had this amazing invention called a 'text book'. The instructors would choose some selection of chapters from the 'text book', figure out an order in which they'd proceed in negotiating its chapters, review the content in the text book with the children, assign homework from the chapter appendices, and eventually test the children on absorption of material in 'text book'.

I'm stunned to find that for my elementary (about to head to middle school) aged daughter, they have no text books. For fractional arithmetic, and simple algebraic equations, and other mysteries of the maths, the teacher basically writes down some example problems on a white board, talks through the problems, and then hands the children sheets of paper with problems to solve.

There is no text book or example problem base to point the children to for narrative description on how to solve the problem.

There is no encouragement to take notes to DYI an example base as mentioned above to solve the problems (I need to fix this situation myself I think)

My impression is that the teachers just write some examples in front of the class, present them and talk them over, and then give them homework.

Now, with remote learning piled on top of this situation, the kids seem even more 'on their own' then before? IDK maybe I'm missing something. This manner of teaching and learning doesn't remind me of my school days.

a reply to: JAGStorm
I am 57 years old. I never took home economics in school, but I did learn to sew while I was a child. It is funny when my daughters ask me hem pants for them.
I took academic classes in high school, but we still had shop classes (industrial arts is what they called it then) and they had us welding in 7th grade.

originally posted by: wheresthebody
"shop class" is wood working and learning about how to use tools, it was fun.

I learned bandsaws are pretty damned dangerous, when Mr. Hays took his finger off with one.

a reply to: Snarl

I really liked shop class. I made a set of ash shelves. Drafted the plans and then built them from the plans. I still have them and use them to this day. They're holding toys in my son's room.

As far as the other stuff goes. It's called "adulting" in today's slang, and I'm guessing a lot of people are learning it the hard way right about now - cooking, sewing, etc.

I've decided that son and I will try to bake one batch of cookies/week for our post-supper desserts. I think we'll make ;am (my ;ay key is shot on my backup keyboard so I'm using the semicolon to compensate until I get my primary dried out or fixed or replaced) thumbprints this week. Last week, we made chocolate chips. He helps measure and pour and we work with fractions because that's a natural activity to do with measuring cups and spoons.

Husband and I tag team with his e-learning. He and I sit down and look at what lessons he has and we set an order. Then we start. When one of us starts getting frustrated, the other parent steps in, or if one parent hits a brick wall, the other parent might have a better approach to understanding. It's fortunate we're both working from home.

I think at this time, textbooks would be useful, even if they were in e-book format. Because you're right. I recall the regular, reliable formatting of my spelling text, for example. Every week, you moved into a new unit and it was always the same look, same types of exercises, list words featured a certain type of spelling lesson in them, etc. I would think that would make it easier for the teachers at this point in time.

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: JAGStorm

God damn the kids of today.

The most accurate thing about this is it's actually the freaking parents that are the problem.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Maybe they are teaching everything wrong? We should stop teaching kids to pass tests and start teaching them to do actual things.

Autodidact here to testify that necessity is a great motivator.
When CNN felt compelled to print a how-to for people only accustomed to eating out, the real problem was exposed.
LEARNING (self directed) is a completely different activity than TEACHING (directing others).

Had I not learned to cook by the time I was a pre-teenager I would have starved.
Fortunately I'd been a chemistry nut so the whole cooking thing wasn't too much of a stretch.
For the most part. "Creaming method". Sous vide? Fancy boiling bag - remember like before common microwave 'pouch food' there were boiling bags.

SHOP CLASS - never took it in school because I was with the college prep eggheads.
All my other musician buddies took shop at another campus in the afternoon.
SO I drove 8-12 of their girlfriends home from school every day. Long live shop class!

ganjoa

originally posted by: Snarl

originally posted by: wheresthebody
"shop class" is wood working and learning about how to use tools, it was fun.

I learned bandsaws are pretty damned dangerous, when Mr. Hays took his finger off with one.

LMAO.

We had a German teacher with really thick accent for machine shop. No one could understand him, so we would just wing it...

He had more gold teeth than he had fingers! LOL

a reply to: ganjoa

Husband and I both had parents who were more prone to eating out than cooking. We both knew the theory behind it, but we essentially self-taught. In our early years of marriage, our dates days used to be to find a recipe and spend the day chasing down ingredients and cooking it. It didn't always turn out great, but we were slowly learning.

Watching the food competition shows like Iron Chef and Chopped also taught us a lot. We learned what sorts of techniques you could use to produce a decent meal in a short amount of time. We used it to learn how to wing weeknight meals and put stuff on the table in 20 minutes or so, and time is really most people's complaint. "I can go through a drive-thru faster than I can cook ..." Simple pork chop or fish fillet and some veggies can be done in that amount of time. It's basic, but it's healthy and cheaper, and if you know how to use your spice cabinet and vinegars and oils, you can produce a variety of flavors on it.

I whole heartedly agree.

We’re way too dependent on the big machine to keep providing everything for us. I feel as time goes on, the less people are interested in doing anything with their own hands. I know here in South Florida, trade work has taken a massive hit in the last 20 years. It seems to be something people fall back on just because there is ample employment for it, rather than setting out to make a career in it.

Growing up in Maine, my peers and I loved shop class. It was a big sense of pride to bring home what we made to give to our parents. But a lot of us also grew up with parents working in forestry, carpentry, the shoe industry, farming, etc. In big cities where that stuff is practically non-existent, the less chances are that kids will see it as a valued career. A lot of it down here is done by immigrants and practically looked down upon. Carpentry is limited to construction work and people who can afford to have custom cabinets installed in their home.

I’m certainly glad I grew up learning these things at an early age. I learned to cook early on to feed myself and my sister because my mother and stepfather were always out in bars, then started working in restaurants when I was 14 where I developed those skills. My father always built everything out of necessity and being broke. I was using a table saw to help him build an entertainment system when I was 9, which we drilled all the screw holes for with a hand drill because he couldn’t afford a power drill. All those skills prepped me for my current job, a Building Engineer, where the more work I complete in-house means the bigger bonus I get at the end of the year. Electrical work I picked up on my own out of my desire to fix and tweak my guitar equipment and being a complete gear nerd, not knowing how much I’d end up doing it in the future at my current job.

a reply to: JAGStorm

Do I recall correctly they changedremoved some law requiring the country of origin on meats and produce?

a reply to: ketsuko

I love it! Finding a recipe, hunting down the ingredients and cooking it is still a date night fave for us!

EDIT: in fairness, we love locally-owned restaurants too and have supported them regularly during this whatever-the-hell-it-is.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thats because the food in drivethru is already cooked. I use my foodsaver to seal up racks of goodies from the smoker and then its as simple as boiling a bag in a pot of water to make dinner another day.

a reply to: JAGStorm

You're totally correct.

Problem is. A lot of people don't have the wisdom you do, and likely didn't learn much from this.

People en masse will be more willing to shut down and panic than ever before.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

You just made it into next week's D&D game session sir. Ser Augustus Mazon, huntmaster of the most dangerous game in Bubbleon.

a reply to: 0zzymand0s

Same here!

I'm going to be an even bigger latte addict because I keep sending my husband out to the local coffee stop. There's not way I'm going to be left with ;ust Starbucks when this is all over. We're also still ordering wings on Fridays from the local wing stop. If I can't have voodoo sauce once a week to make my eyelids sweat and my nose run, I'd be one unhappy person. There are others, but those two we a sort of regulars with.

a reply to: drewlander

Oh, I know. People have the perception that cooking is a time consuming process, but it doesn't have to be.

They are likely like my kiddo when it comes to cleaning up his stuff at the end of the week. He spends so much time moaning, complaining and finding ways to avoid it, that it does take forever.

originally posted by: ketsuko
People have the perception that cooking is a time consuming process, but it doesn't have to be.

One word: mise en place.

Or is that three...

a reply to: JAGStorm

I know individual mileage does vary but for my family and I we have not learned a single one of those points.

During the last few weeks of home social distancing in the epicenter of this outbreak:

We have had zero reason to sew a single thing. Or work on any wood projects. Not that we couldn't; how hard is it to cut up a tea shirt and run some thread through it?

We have not gone with out a single food item we are use to having.

We have cooked and eaten take out at exactly the same ratio as we did prior to the epidemic.

We have rather enjoyed the extra time we have been spending with the kids. I worry about them missing to much school; but if this is a one off thing than its been a blessing spending more time with our kids. But in the end we will all be going back to work as normal when this is over.

Now this is the point I feel bad about as I know a lot of people are struggling right now and I hope they find relief. But in the weeks of this isolation my family have been able to save more money than we normally do. Its been interesting to see how much normal life costs. If my job didn't normally require my physical presence I would seriously consider asking my company to work more at home.

And the point being is that not everyone is learning your lessons. Even in the epicenter of this world pandemic are those lessons being learned universally. I really wouldn't expect any big change to occur when life gets back to normal.