Shop Class 2*

The creeping crud swept through our household and I'm the last one still sick. Instead of writing a weightier post from scratch, I am going through my list of drafts (UFOs) that I never posted for one reason or another. I came across this quote from Shop Class as Soulcraft, which I have previously written about. Go and read that first.

I have tried to make a case for self-reliance of a certain kind -- being master of your own stuff. This requires a basic intelligibility to our possessions: in their provenance, in their principles of operation, in their logic of repair and maintenance, in short, in all those ways that a material object can make itself fully manifest to us, so we can be responsible for it.

I mostly agree with Matthew Crawford, but I think he shares the common myopia of dismissing/ignoring the similar value of Home Ec entirely.  As someone who has taken both Shop and Home Ec, I can aver that Home Ec is harder.

* @LHC Your comment about international food merits a separate post.

But, I just noticed an article about the DIY kits that mentioned Heathkit and Altair but not Frostline.   I am disgusted at the omission.  Sewing is not for girls only.  In the US, Frostline kits were the first introduction to sewing of many boy scouts.