This post was inspired by Roche Mamabolo’s post entitled “What we teach”.
When I entered high school (I went to an all-girls school), the least useful subject was Guidance (it’s now called Life Orientation). It was supposed to guide us in things not related to academics.
Imagine my surprise when the 1st lesson of Grade 8 was the screening of a grainy black and white movie of a woman giving birth. There was no introduction or preamble or anything approximating sex education.
What message do you think was being given to us by the department of education in all its wisdom?
Don’t you think that without the frame of sex education, the message of such a movie was rather a limited one?
Wouldn’t it have been better to temper it with another video followed by a practical of how to change a tyre? How to open a bank account? How to do a budget? You know, useful things that everyone needs to know in order to navigate the practicalities of daily life.
My Mom told me at an early age – “Study and work hard so that you never have to be financially dependent on anyone.”
My Mom taught me that women have value, and to hold their own in any context is natural. No announcements. No fuss. It’s natural.
What do we tell our children, girls and boys?
What do we teach them?
What do they see in people who are supposed to be role models?
Are they inspired to be better than us?
When I was growing up we had the choice of taking home economics or shop class which was a combination of wood working and car repair and they may have been separated at some point. Even in the 1990’s girls were encouraged toward typing and home ec/child care classes and boys toward shop and agriculture. Now there are classes specifically for teaching to balance a check book, budget, and so forth and all are required to take them before graduating. I’m sad to say that most classes for home ec are gone now so both genders are left out in the cold regarding the basics of sewing and cooking and budgeting for a home. We think we have made quite the change in education, but 1992 wasn’t all that long ago and it doesn’t seem that the change has happened soon enough!
Yeah, it’s not balanced enough. Both boys and girls can benefit from home economics and car repair and financial matters, etc. It should be an “and” not an “or”.