Not 4-H but I was in FFA ( Future Farmers of America ) for a few years back in high school and so was my son.

Yes, my late husband was in FFA and I still have his FFA jacket.

Sue

I grew up in suburban Chicago in the 1940's. In 7th and 8th grades the boys had 'shop' class and the girls had 'home economics'. They hammered and sawed; we sewed and cooked. I don't think this still exists, but if it does, I hope all the classes are co-educational. (I know our DGS was already baking cakes at that age -- as well as building a hive for the bees he is now tending.)

We had 4H clubs at my elementary school and the whole class (generally) participated. The "meetings" were during the school day and the projects were mostly on-your-own-time projects. There was also 4H camp in the summer, but not everyone went. There were yearly poster, baking contests and demonstration contests in 4H and I remember getting exciting when it was time to pick out our project booklets at the beginning of each school year (I think we got to choose 2, but it might have been 3). There was a smaller 4H club in high school, but I didn't participate in it.

Like Jack, I was in the FFA but only for my freshman year- I didn't take any of the agriculture-related classes after that year.

Oh, yes, there was Home Ec . and the boys had shop classes in school.

Sue

I think some of my classmates were in 4-H. I don't know why I wasn't. When I was in school, girls in Jr High took Home Ec, and boys took shop. Both later became co-ed, but I know Home Ec no longer exists in that school system. The college Mom attended to become a Home Ec teacher no longer has that program. When I graduated high school in '75, some thought I might follow my mother into teaching Home Ec. I didn't, though, because I don't much like children. I don't think anyone dreamed it would be considered obsolete before I reached retirement age.

My brother and I were both 4-H members for years. I learned to love sheep and hate black Angus steers! At least one black Angus steer named John. I learned the basics of sewing, but never got good at it. My sewing leader's favorite story about my projects was that I was her only student who put in a zipper not only upside down, but backwards.

It was a great experience in all. Getting a blue ribbon at the county fair is a good ego booster. My girls also were in 4-H (son was not interested). Thanks for the memory trip!

My grandmother and mom were both Home Ec teachers. It still exists at our universities but it's titles are different. I think it's called Nutrition at ours. The daughter of a friend of mine majored in nutrition and now teaches foods (now called nutrition) in high school along with a couple of science courses. The high schools are crying for these teachers.

When my mom taught in the 70's boys could take cooking and she preferred to teach them over the girls. Girls followed recipes exactly as written out while the boys would experiment with different herbs and spices.

I took the required cooking/sewing classes in grade 8 and wanted to take shop but wasn't allowed to - being a girl and all. But I was "allowed" to take drafting.

Chisue, same here In the 60s. But not long after I left junior high, the program changed to give the girls a quarter in shop, and the boys a quarter in home ec.

Boy, I wish I‘d taken more home Ec. I could have used a much better understanding of textiles, garment construction, nutrition, cooking science, home design, budgeting and finance, human development, etc. On the other hand, I did enjoy music theory. And my mother did try to teach me those things, she was a talented seamstress and cook, but geez, mom, I want to bike uptown and hang out with my friends.

A couple of years ago I was a judge for the county fair’s 4-H entries. It was harder than I thougth it would be! I was assigned to judge the art entries against a set of criteria. It was hard to make judgements on skill versus, um, enthusiasm, on time spent versus “just getting it done and entered is a major accomplishment for this kid”, on ability to acquire the materials needed to present the piece according to the rules (if you live on a farm and your parents also work full time and you don’t drive because you are 9 years old, how do you get to Hobby Lobby to get the right color backing, the right kind of tape, etc? I wanted to judge on ingenuity!) I haven’t volunteered to judge since, it was just too hard.

I loved the various shop classes and took all that I could in Jr High and high school. I learned information and vocational skills in each that continue to be useful to this day for me. It's a shame they've been dropped in so many schools.

There were no farm or other agricultural organizations or activities in the urban setting I grew up in.

I think I may have been in 4H, or something similar outside of the school. But the meetings and activities still took place in the classroom, I was in fourth grade? All I remember is the pin cushion and tea towel I sewed. However, I don't remember anything beyond that and must have dropped out soon after.

Sewing and cooking were not my things until I became a young adult and had to learn when my mom went back to work and I cooked for my Dad and brother and did general domestic duties. ha no sewing, and I hate to sew to this day. I have no patience.

I was in 4-H for a while. Cooking and sewing, I don't remember anything else. My mom taught me that stuff at home, too.

I took shop in 7th grade. The girls were supposed to take Home Ec, but my mother told them that I already knew enough to teach the class. She enrolled me In shop, the only girl. I took it in 8th grade, too, and by then there were a couple of other girls in class.

I too was not allowed to take shop but managed with my best friend to get into Drafting, very much against the wishes of the teacher. He simply refused to teach us. we were ignored and having missed the first week when they learned how to use the drafting board and tools we had to work our way through it ourselves. Home ec wise our teachers knew absolutely nothing. One of them didn't even know how to thread a sewing machine let alone how to put in a zipper. Where did they find them? Cooking? Here is a mix. I already knew how to cook but I could have used some advice on not making my first sewing project a wool plaid skirt that needed bound seams AND a zipper. Matching that plaid was a nightmare. I went on to make all my own clothes even blue jeans. I eventually learned to upholster and my first project had a rose trellis pattern that had to match six ways. What is wrong with me? I just didn't think that fabric through. It actually worked but I think I used up all my positive Karma doing it. I never lived anywhere that had 4-H. I would have enjoyed it.

When I was in HS (1966-70) I wanted to take shop but they wouldn't let me, but they did let boys take Home Ec - Cooking. I had learned how to cook and sew 10 years before and could make a whole dinner and sew my own clothes. So that class was a waste of time. I ended helping other students do things in that class.

When I was 10 my twin sister and I joined 4H and Girl Scouts but it didn't last beyond a year. We didn't like the 4H leader, so stopped going, and the GS leader quit after a few months.

I was the 4 H club leader at school where I taught home ec. One of my students competed in their egg cooking competition and won lst place. Made her eligible to go to state competition but she didn't want to. :o(

There may have been 4-H when I was young, but not near me, but it was common in later years.

I was in grain club, had a plot of oats and attended meetings with other young growers.

Had a calf for a year, but don't remember whether there was a related club.

A student in two-room and one-room rural high schools, we had next to no or nil shop and home ec. options.

ole joyful

When I entered junior high (7th grade) all girls had to take one year of Home Ec, and all boys a year of Shop. A second and third year was possible, but voluntary. I took one more year of Home Ec. It was still offered in my high school and I had a friend who took it all 3 years (3 yr high school). I don't think Shop was offered unless one was in the Trade School part of the high school.

I was so surprised when my husband started teaching in a Maine high school in a very rural part of a very rural state, that there was no Home Ec. My own children had gone to private schools and I don't think Home Ec was ever taught. Woodworking was taught to the boys at one school they attended - my son enjoyed it and I still have a couple of his "projects". I just assumed that it would be taught in such a rural area, but it was not.

ALL students of BOTH SEXES (and any other way they prefer to identify these days!), should be required to take a year of Home Ec and of Shop. I understand quite well why there were dropped. The kitchens and the sewing machines became cost-prohibitive, as did the Shop equipment (not as high as Home Ec). It's still too bad as so many young today grow up thinking "cooking" means microwaving a frozen pizza! A box of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese can be a challenge for them! Hang a picture or a mirror? No way! Fix a loose doorknob? Again, no. I'm delighted that at least 3 or my grandchildren know how to cook quite well - DGD even makes french macarons. Her brother has no interest. One of my two local DGS's was able to cook well enough to forgo a meal plan this summer when he did a 6 week paid research study; the other one is a true foodie and is quite accomplished in the kitchen. Both the local ones know how to use hand tools - not allowed power tools, other than a drill, even at 17 and 19.

And I have taught my local DGS's how to properly make a bed, hospital corners and all!

I went to an all-girl urban school in the 60s and 70s, and there was no Home Ec, only Shop. We learned how to hammer, saw, etc., which is great, but to this day I can't iron without putting more wrinkles in the garment. (I leave the ironing to my husband, who is excellent at it.)

Ironing? What's ironing?

I was not allowed to take Home Ec, but in 4-H, I could enter the baking contests, and I won grand champion for my bread at the county fair when I was 10 years old. It was quite a large county, and I beat 400 other contestants, many of whom were not happy about being beaten by a boy. Some girls entered the livestock competition and won, which made the men even unhappier, and so they then agreed that boys could not enter cooking contests and girls could not enter the livestock competitions. I think that lasted only about one year.

I wasn’t in 4H but we had it in our school. I grew up in a small town that was pretty much mixed rural and urban kids. DH grew up on a large farm in a predominantly farm town in Ohio so yes, he was in 4H and FFA and has fond memories of raising and showing Angus cattle. He won many ribbons and his Dad had champion Angus. I didn’t even take home ec, opting to take more math and science courses and stick with PE classes which I enjoyed far more.

DH was reading an old friend’s post the other day about their grandkids who are still doing the same things in the same town. There was an article posted about the kids who raise calves for the sales this time of year and then have to face the reality that the cows they sell are going to be sold for slaughter. The whole article was about how it can be a tearful time but a learning experience. But then someone had to comment about how inhumane it was to do this, and on and on. What a downer.

In the early 70's, both boys and girls had to do Home Economic and shop. We had a rotation of art, Home Ec, music and shop for everyone. We did not have a choice until you were in High School. I took 4 H for sewing, I remember winning something at the county fair. I still love to sew.

Outside Playing -- I'm not surprised that someone shed tears about the slaughter aspect. Urban people (the vast majority of Americans today) have no clue. They speak of dogs and cats as though they were human children. They don't associate the food on their plates with actual fowl, cows, pigs, whatever. They probably missed the reality lesson part of "The Yearling". I blame Disney! lol

> I loved the various shop classes and took all that I could in Jr High
and high school. I learned information and vocational skills in each
that continue to be useful to this day for me. It's a shame they've been
dropped in so many schools.

I also took as many as I could -- 6 years of shop classes -- in addition to a full college prep curriculum. I often say I got more direct benefit from the shop classes than from any of the other classes I took in high school. I still have and use some of the projects I built in those classes, and have used the basic skills a myriad of times.

We didn't have 4-H or FFA but shop and home ec were electives for high school. I hated sewing but liked cooking, although I can't recall that I learned very much. I had been cooking since I was 10 or so. There was a national competition in Home Ec that we were required to enter and I won that. It meant nothing to me and I felt bad because one of my friends was going to be a Home Ec teacher and she really wanted to win it.

When Mom taught Home Ec, she did sections on cooking and nutrition, sewing, and child development, since many of us at 13 or so would be baby-sitting soon. There must have been one more (four semesters to the school year,) but I've forgotten the other. I think she figured if kids left class able to run a sewing machine to mend their own seams and correctly measure ingredients and follow a recipe, she'd more or less succeeded.

I took a 4H dog training project. Went on to win the state competition in dog training and went on to Chicago for nationals. I also took projects in sewing, cooking, dairy calf, and planting tomatoes and flowers.

4H was a very important part of our lives in a rural community

OutsidePlaying, I came here to post a question about that very subject. I was never in 4-H, but I know that many children benefit from being part of their organization. It's fair time here and the kids will be showing the animals they have raised and then selling them at auction. As I do every year, I find myself wondering how difficult it must be to raise those animals from babies only to sell them for slaughter at the auction that will be held after judging is over.

My question was in regard to how traumatized are the kids when they have to sell their animals or is it considered part of farm/ranch life and something every future farmer/rancher has to learn to cope with? I know that I personally couldn't do it but I also realize it's necessary for those who supply our food.

My mom raised and showed beef calves when she was a young teen and the local grocery store bought her steers more than once. I remember her saying that she wouldn't eat beef for months after because she didn't want to accidentally eat one of the steers she had raised. Looking back, that probably wasn't a possibility since my grandparents raised their own beef, but she was that worried about it.