TEACHING IMPORTANT AREAS OF HOME ECONOMICS

CORAZON C. VALENCIA

Home economics is not just a simple subject area that pupils are required to hurdle every now and then to be able to get through with their elementary years. It is a subject that requires at least the familiarity, if not the mastery, of the subject areas under this interdisciplinary subject.

Teachers of home economics are expected to have adequate knowledge of the subject areas under home economics. Cooking and food preparation is central to homemaking. Pupils are introduced to the rudiments of cooking as one of the earliest disciplines in home economics.

Basic elementary programs must teach how pupils, especially those who can already handle the kitchen, how to cook a balanced meal, and included food safety and preservation.

Home economics is also a springboard for the discussion on child development. In addition to cooking and nutrition, home economics students were taught how to rear children. This included learning about the stages of child development and how to correctly respond to children at each stage. Today, students who study family and consumer sciences still learn child development, which has become so significant that it is, in many places, its own major.

Managing the household is also a key area of home economics. This area of study also included cleaning and organization, which was significant because homemakers were expected to keep the house clean and organized. Today, individuals who study family and consumer sciences use these skills to enter design fields where they thrive as designers, decorators, organization gurus and real estate staging experts.

In addition to cooking, child rearing, home planning and sewing, home economics students learned how to budget. Because women did all, or most, of the family shopping, they were expected to understand how to spend wisely and make the most judicious use of available funds. Today, this traditional element of home economics is still relevant in family and consumer science programs as students learn to properly budget, balance and invest income.

In addition to caring for the home, students who studied home economics learned how to properly care for sick family members. This included sanitation, keeping the sick family member fed and quarantined from the healthy and at-home treatments for common illnesses. Today, some family and consumer science programs offer this information to students, though it is not commonly its own area of study any longer.

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The author is Teacher III at Diladila Elementary School, Santa Rita District