random poll

[rm]

Super busy. Am suddenly curious about this. Apparently most kids entering college in the US this year don't know how to write in cursive. I suspect this is less a sign of the apocalypse than it feels like to me.

So, tell me things (as usual, poll is un-scientific and reflects my biases and experiences (and 49-year-olds can choose which age category they like better!) -- if the boxes don't work, my apologies and comments super welcome.):

[Poll #1607173]

Comments

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I didn't tick any options for school location - partly because I had racked up ten different schools across three continents before I turned sixteen, and partly because the majority of them were private boarding schools whose rural location probably didn't have much impact on the syllabus.

I suspect gender did make a difference; several of my schools were all-girls schools and while domestic science/home economics were part of the main syllabus, I would have had to try quite hard to be taught woodwork or metalwork.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Ah, you make me wish I had known how to frame class questions in this too. Because I remember being shocked and sort of horrified when I went to public school after Miss Hewitt's and wood and machine shop were mandatory, as opposed to things like Latin and calligraphy.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

It makes a big difference. I wasn't ever taught typing at school because of the unspoken assumption that we were meant to be being trained up for a life above secretarial work, for example. I rather wish I had been; although conversely I am very glad to have been taught Latin and Greek.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I went to a suburban public school through to 8th grade, and in junior high (7th and 8th) we had shop and home ec (which included sewing and cooking) switch off, one each semester, and art and music switched off in the same way.

I learned calligraphy in jr high art classes and took Latin as well. This was a well-funded upper-middle class suburban school district that is still rated one of the best in Massachusetts.

I'm middle-moving-up, as Mom and Dad definitely grew up lower middle, and now I have the tastes of upper-middle but the income of working poor.

I think class definitely enters into it. My cousins who were from the more lower-middle town went to the vo-tech, while my brother and a different set of cousins went to the private Catholic high school that was the closest college prep school to the Cape.