In 2017, Laura Pace, a middle school family and consumer sciences (FCS) teacher from Farmington, New Mexico, contacted the New Mexico Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (NMAFCS) regarding the use of a high school teacher evaluation system developed by the New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) to assess her middle school program.…

Families and community members are challenging secondary schools to improve career readiness preparation. Family and consumer sciences (FCS) educators can be instrumental in helping students prepare effectively for a career with school-to-work transitions through work-based learning (WBL). This article presents the implementation of a 2-day FCS…

March 2020 will be etched in time as a significant pivot in the landscape of education. For many educators, transitioning to remote learning initiated a survival mode in which previously unutilized strategies were implemented to salvage curriculum. The lack of in-person interaction halted traditional instruction methods, altering opportunities to…

What distinguishes family and consumer sciences (FCS) teachers from other teachers in a K-12 setting is the population they teach and the subject matter taught (Poirier et al., 2017). FCS teachers teach students social, emotional, and cognitive skills including cooking, sewing, finance, life/relational skills, and child development. This variety…

Cairns and cares: they sound nearly alike, and at Tommie Kunst Junior High School (Santa Maria, CA), the two words are synonymous. Kim Cairns is a "Pitsco Education" Life Skills lab facilitator who cares deeply about her students--what they do, what they say, how they act, what they learn, and everything in between. Cairns has taken…

Photographs are often overlooked as a source of historical data, which is unfortunate. The old adage "a picture speaks a thousand words" holds true. Burke (2001) observed that photographs convey "forms of realities, which carry and contain individual readings or 'truths' and open up new spaces from which to pose different…

The concept of gender stereotypes permeates the lives of youth in the United States. This article provides background information and rationale for incorporating gender stereotype analysis into family and consumer sciences (FCS) coursework. The critical analysis of gender stereotypes includes numerous activities and assessments that encourage…

The recession of 2008 brought foreclosures, job loss, credit defaults, an increase in bankruptcy, and a decrease in savings rates. The past decade also introduced a major change in the healthcare system and concern for the increase in student loan debt. All of these issues affected individuals, families, and communities in a variety of ways; for…

Recent changes made by the Council for Professional Recognition to the Child Development Associate (CDA) credentialing program create an opportunity to redesign high school child development programs. On April 1, 2011, the Council for Professional Recognition lifted the age restriction in the CDA credentialing requirements, now allowing students…

Accreditation by the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) was a long-held dream of the Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) Unit at Jacksonville State University in Alabama. After more than 6 decades of preparing FCS students for life and the workplace, the FCS Unit resolutely began the journey to the coveted and honored…

With the progress of digital technologies and applications being used in schools, family and consumer sciences (FCS) educators have a collective responsibility to teach what it means to be a responsible digital citizen in the virtual world. The nine elements of digital citizenship developed by Ribble (2015) offer a framework for teaching students…

In today's high technology, globally interdependent world, we must educate students to achieve to their highest capacity. The goal of this middle school fashion design project was to develop a classroom environment that promoted teaching for creativity. We examined the following questions. What was the students' perception of their (a)…

Family and consumer sciences (FCS) education has traditionally attracted a large percentage of female students (Vincenti, 1997; Werhan, 2013). Werhan (2013) reported that slightly less than 3.5 million students are engaged in FCS courses, and at the high school level, approximately 65% of them are female. This skewed representation of female…

At Iowa State University, the introductory textile science course is a required 4-credit class for all undergraduate students enrolled in the Apparel, Merchandising, and Design Program. Frustrated by a perceived gap between students who easily comprehended course material and those who complained and struggled, the instructor implemented an…

Accountability for student success is at an all-time high in higher education; programs are challenged to actively engage students through significant learning experiences for cognitive, affective, and behavioral change. Family and consumer sciences departments are poised to lead the way in developing and modeling educational practices that result…