Education Is De-skilling our Children

Earlier on today I was drafting out a posting on a completely different topic, but as today is Shrove Tuesday, the topic I was writing about reminded me that in the village store I had seen an instant pancake mix. My initial reaction was that surely people know how to make pancakes?
However, I realised that actually it is quite likely that people don't. Further, I realised why this was and it is in fact at the root of many of the social problems that exist today. Back when I was at school even us boys were expected to do one term of cooking. It had the fancy title of Home Economics, but basically it was simply cookery. I enjoyed it and predominantly by teaching myself, I learned how to cook. I am not perfect, even now I can get my timing wrong and I have served starters after the main course!

However I went to school just as the industrial age was ending. No matter what your real talent was the schools then were churning out factory workers. Or so they thought, during my last two years at school on the bus I would pass the factories where I was expected to work. Yet in those two years I saw factory after factory close. I was fortunate as I got a job in a Horticultural Nursery, very poor wages, but a job.

The certainties of the whole basis of the education system just fell away. The education system then emphasised, even more than it had previously, that exams were the way to go. When I left school O-levels were what was required. Then the emphasis was pushed onto A levels, (the equivalent of a high school diploma). Now all the emphasis is on getting a degree.

What has been lost in this overly academic thrust in the education system is the chance to experience different subjects, especially the practical ones.

That's the base of this triangle, another aspect is the number of women that are now working. This is not an anti-feminist rant, the fact that a woman is just as good as a man in any job has been proved time and again. However, this change has not come as a choice that women are free to make as most of the time women have to work just to make ends meet. When I was a child on the news you would hear about “A Family Wage”, now even two young working professionals together struggle to afford to live on a joint salary. Therefore, parents are so busy working that they don't have the time to pass on the skills of cooking. Additionally, the food industry and the supermarkets are tricking us into buying all these highly processed convenience foods. Further undermining the confidence of people in their abilities to cook.

Finally is the hype that is marketed to us about what we should be consuming and the lifestyle we should be leading. In the developed western world, while we are all richer, anxiety and depression rates are at an all time high.

I don't know first hand what the situation is like in the US, as an example, but here in Britain very few families sit down at the table for a meal. More often than not, its a plate on the lap in front of the television. Further, sometimes because of shift patterns or other commitments different members of the family are eating at different times.

While I am not advocating that it should be the woman that does the cooking, when I was married I did most of the cooking. But the loss of household skills and the reliance on “Fast Junk Food” is de-skilling a whole generation. This all impacts upon the loss of social cohesion, as a family sitting around a table eating and talking builds bonds, while eating microwave mush in front of the television just deadens the mind.

It would have been all to easy to have dismissed the appearance of an instant pancake mix on the shelves of the local store as people being lazy, but its really the loss of skills and the confidence to try that enables the food industry to make and market products like this successfully. When I first started to cook, I made my own recipe book. Pancakes was the first recipe I wrote in the book.

Personally I would encourage everyone to make their own. Apart from it being way cheaper than this manufactured junk, it can also be fun.

Here's the Recipe:

3oz (75g) of flour
¼ pint (150ml) of milk
One Egg (Medium or Large)

Mix the milk with the flour until you have a smooth paste. Season to taste with salt and pepper, beat in the egg, you should have a pouring paste but you can add extra milk to make a pouring paste.

It really is that simple, but if you have never been shown or had the opportunity to learn, well now is your chance.

What is particularly crazy about all this processed food is that it all contributes to climate change. The factories that create this stuff use far more energy per portion that you would do in your own home manufacturing it, then with child and frozen food its all kept in open chillers in the supermarkets. Add in the energy used to transport it around and the economics of processed foods start to look crazy.

It is worth noting that the supermarkets don't sell convenience foods for our benefit, while they may say they are offering choice, really they do it because they make more profit on these foods.

Therefore save money and save the planet by learning how to cook.