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

[wcg.livejournal.com]

What an interesting set of choices... Here are the details of mine, for what they're worth.

I started cursive writing in the 3rd grade at St. Benedict's school in Highland Park, Michigan (an inner city of Detroit) in 1962-63

I learned typing in business typing class at Salpointe Catholic high school in Tucson, Arizona, in 1970-71.

I learned to cook and sew first from my grandmother, and later in the boy scouts. The only time I ever had a class in school that involved cooking was a high school senior class called "marriage" which was intended to prepare us for married life. The cooking for boys part of that consisted of buying a can of Campbell's soup, looking at the recipe on the back, getting everything else needed to cook that recipe, and then doing it in class. (Actually a very good life lesson, and one I've used quite a few times.)

My father taught me to drive, but I had to take a driver's education class in school too.

I took a class in "electricity and electronics" in 9th grade, at Salesian (all boys) Catholic high school in Detroit.

Never took woodworking or metalworking classes because those were for people on the "skills trades" track. I was in the "college prep" track. I did learn some metalworking skills from my dad, who also taught me auto mechanics. (I was one of the first ASE certified auto mechanics in the US.)

Gender had a LOT of influence on what I was and wasn't taught in school. Fortunately I had a grandmother who had very firm ideas about boys being able to make do for themselves, no doubt based on her experience running a boarding house for miners in Butte Mt. So I knew how to do all sorts of basic cooking and mending by the time I was 10.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a marriage class! Or rather, a "life skills/relationship skills" class, where one might learn budgeting, effective communication, household management...

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I was required to take either "marriage" or "bachelor survival." That sort of class would probably now be something like "life skills." But for the early 70s, it wasn't bad.

I will note that my class partner in the marriage class and I enjoyed a light-hearted but deeply felt attachment which lasted until she died last year.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

What was the difference between "marriage" and "bachelor survival", as far as topics taught?

I'm sorry for your loss, and glad for the long connection you had.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

My brother Jim took bachelor survival, and as far as I could tell it left out all the stuff about child raising and interpersonal stress brought on by demands on time and money, while spending more time addressing the stuff that a person living alone would need to know. So he got more cooking instruction, and more household management stuff.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Hmm.

Do you feel like, other than the lifelong friendship, that the class had a lasting effect on you?

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it did. I've always thought that business typing was the most useful class I took in high school, but I'd put marriage in strong second place. There was a lot of useful, practical, information that I got in there which proved valuable when I found myself married less than a year later.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Wish I'd taken a class like that.