(no subject)

[camwyn]

Her name was Gordon. Jane Gordon, I think, although I can't be sure. She taught at Louis Armstrong Middle School, IS 227, in Corona, Queens. Her subject was Home Economics, although there were two different kinds of home ec. I don't know if she taught the cooking side of things, but I know she taught the sewing side of things.

Fifth graders at Louis Armstrong took shop class in addition to all the other subjects. Half their school year was either graphic arts shop- which translated to learning the use of pilot presses, the carving of linoleum for block printing, etc.- or wood shop. Half the school year was a home ec shop. If you got printing shop, you got sewing shop the other half of the year. The wood kids got cooking. You might have switched to other shop classes in later years, but I was only at Louis Armstrong for one year.

Jane Gordon taught us sewing by hand. We were supposed to get the basics of sewing machine use by the end of the year, or at least we were told that in the first week. We never got to sewing machines. Partly because a bunch of fractious NYC fifth graders are not really the fastest bunch of learners when it comes to picking up hem stitching, back stitching, and basic embroidery stitches. But also partly because Jane Gordon had Opinions, although to be fair those Opinions only cost us one class's worth of learning and practice time.

Turns out if a fifth grader is caught looking at snippets of photographic pornography in a 1980s NYC middle school home ec class, and the teacher has Opinions, you get a class-long lecture on sexism, sex-related attitudes, and terminology that I have never encountered anywhere else in the world. I've never, ever encountered anyone else, anywhere, who has said that the female counterpart to Male Chauvinist Pig was Female Chauvinist Sow.

Funny the things that come to mind when you're bent over a battery powered handheld sewing machine muttering to yourself because your damn fifth grade sewing teacher thought Gender Equality and Respect for Sexual Dignity was more important to teach than ACTUAL SEWING.

Comments

[neotoma]

My mom quilted as a hobby, but she just had no patience for teaching me to sew. I knit, and what I know of sewing I picked up because I needed to sew seams together.

Otoh, we live in the future and youtube has 18 million sewing tutorials out there. Eventually someone will convey the information you need in a way that makes sense to you...

[cameoflage]

I learned to sew on a machine from my dad when I was a kid! He didn't do a great job of teaching me how to set up the machine, though, so I still struggle with that to this day. Bobbins.