Title: There’s No Prereq for Home Ec!: My Family and Computer Sciences Journey, Thirty Years and Counting…
Author: Gloria Humphreys
Publisher: Olympus Story House
ISBN: 978-1969422430
Pages: 148
Genre: Reference / Memoir
Reviewer: Barbara Bamberger Scott
Pacific Book Review
Author Gloria Humphreys presents an insider’s look interweaving the fields of her public face as a Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) teacher and her experience of juggling the realities behind the scenes at home and with family and friends. In the field of education, FCS was once known as “Home Economics.” But with passing generations, changing philosophies, and the widening reach of computerization, it has taken on a more complex format, though cooking properly is still its basic tenet.
Early on, she and her students learned a valuable lesson when someone used liquid soap in the dishwashing machine, entailing extensive cleaning of the entire kitchen. In various school settings, she learned that young students can be bold, honest, and often gratifyingly spontaneous, giving her job ever increasing layers of responsibility and enjoyment. In a setting that required students to cook at home and provide recipes and results, one boy, near to failure, teamed up with his grandmother to create five successful recipes and a memory he vowed he would never forget, his declaration bringing tears to the author’s eyes. In a sex education class, one young man said fertilization takes place, not in the fallopian tubes, but, as his father had told him, “In the back seat of his car.” Such occurrences, vividly depicted, evoke in Humphreys the gratitude that she has been able to persist, study, and learn that teaching is not about perfection, but about connection.
Humphreys has been a long-term home economics and FCS educator, whose changing life patterns, differing settings and professional connections with such organizations as Family, Career and Community Leaders of America, offer her readers portraits often hilarious, sometimes poignant, all remarkable in their diversity that are frank, forthright, and, as might be expected, highly educational.
Rife with vignettes of classroom incidents and the reactions of family and friends to her professional challenges, Humphrey’s narrative is both energetic and profound, as when, leading a reading class, dealing with students both eager and reluctant, she discovered that books can be “tools, bridges, even lifelines.” This work clearly identifies Humphreys as a talented wordsmith who can quickly create dramatic scenarios and draw from them multiple wise conclusions and fodder for future contemplation. Readers who may not be familiar with the current classroom atmosphere, which admixes computer technology with spontaneity and hands-on exploration, will find Humphrey’s work both fascinating and practical, offering an insider’s view of the expectations, hopes and fulfillment to be found within the classroom setting. It is an encouraging and relatable journey for anyone navigating life’s many transitions.
