Why Don't Schools Teach....

Used to be, Home Ec or Shop was a required course.  People complained that the skills were out-dated and they're now offered as an elective if at all.  Yet I hear it all the time - why don't schools teach gardening, woodworking, sewing, or cooking?

I have a variation on that question: Why don't you teach those things? Why are we not instilling in the young a love of these creative and cost-effective habits?  Why should they learn skills they never see the adults around them use?   

I know a young man, a freshman in high school.  He knows the basics of gardening, cooking, sewing, carpentry, mechanics and engineering.  Because his adults did/do and enjoy those things.  Even if the work itself isn't enjoyable, he's seen the pride taken in a job well done and benefited from the money saved.  If your teenager or child isn't learning these skills, it's on you.  

Kids of a creative bent are constantly told to pursue something else as a career because there's "no money in that".  These skills are manual labor, and therefore nothing to brag about as a profession.  Unless, of course, you manage to own the company or become famous.  

As for the math people keep saying schools should teach?  How to play the stock market, for example?  Guess what... they often have elective classes that teach those things.  Guess what else... most people are not going to use those skills in an economy that leaves most of us floundering from payday to payday and running a Go Fund Me for medical expenses.  

All math is based on what we learn in elementary school - addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.  Balancing a checkbook is rarely anything more than adding and subtracting. Compound interest is more complex, but still boils down to those basics.  

Even more galling is the fact that thse are the same people claiming that teaching reproductive biology is "not the school's job".  And don't even get me started on "indoctrination" because that's a blog in and of itself.