Traditionally, Family and Consumer Science classes teach students about the challenges of parenting by giving them a baby doll to care for as if it’s their own child. However, as our world has modernized, the classes have too, and that’s why this Family and Consumer Sciences class now asks high schoolers to simulate raising two pretty fucked up shelter dogs with their long-term boyfriend in a very small one bedroom apartment.
Awesome! This is definitely going to prepare students for life after high school!
Rather than being asked to simulate marriage and child-rearing, students enrolled in Family and Consumer Sciences at Fairfield High School in New Jersey are first paired together in long-term partnerships (but not marriages, due to the issues with marriage’s patriarchal origins), before they’re given two stuffed dogs that are programmed with different, and often conflicting, disabilities. Over a two-week period, each student will have to work with their partner to create a care schedule so that each dog gets its respective medicine, as giving the wrong dog the wrong medicine could potentially kill one or both of the dogs.
The students will also be given a worksheet with the floor plan of a junior one-bedroom apartment that’s technically just a flex studio—meaning there’s no actual door to the bedroom. They will have to work together to decide how to arrange the furniture to create two separate desk nooks so that both partners can have enough privacy to do their work from home jobs, both of which involve several hours of Zoom calls per day. Additionally, the students will need to create two living spaces for the dogs, because although the shelter claimed otherwise, the dogs do not get along.
As the project comes to a close, the students will receive their final challenge on a school district-approved field trip. During the day-long simulation, one of the dogs will be “sick,” and the students will be bussed to a nearby veterinarian’s office. Once they’re at the office, the students will have to make a difficult choice: They will be asked to decide whether to try to do their jobs from their phones on the vet’s spotty wifi while sitting in the waiting room, or take a PTO day, even though doing so means they will have one day less to use during their upcoming over-budget trip to the Amalfi Coast to celebrate ten years with their partner. After this exercise, the students will return to school and engage in a reflection exercise with their Family and Consumer Science teacher, discussing what they learned about priorities and decision-making in the process.
So cool! This is definitely going to give students a strong sense of the stresses and expectations of current adult life. Sound off below if you think all schools should have a class like this!
