Cookery Lessons
Posted: Tue 22 January, 2008 Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Health, News, Thoughts 1 Comment »On first read, the news that cookery lessons are to become part of the compulsory school schedule is great news. I did cookery lessons way back when I was in school, and it was a useful grounding. (Admittedly, I don’t do a great deal of cooking, but at least I can cook, and can do enough to mean I’m OK without needing to go to a takeaway for meals.)
But then you take a look at the fine print. One hour a week, for one term? Not really a comprehensive course then. (Or a grammar one – ha, education joke. I slay me.) If it were one hour a week for the full school year, you’d have pupils with a decent knowledge of cooking, basic recipes, and general nutritional knowledge that might actually go some way towards the end goal.
Once a week for one term? It’s hardly worth the effort. Of course, even a tiny bit of effort is better than none at all, but still, there’s so much more that could be done with this.
Not a lot you can cook in an hour, either. Part of me thinks this is a good idea, but to be honest, the cooking I did at school – O-Level, tyvm – was supplemental to what I had already learnt at home. I understand that there are adults who can’t actually cook, although I have a real conceptual problem with that ‘can’t’, so I suppose they can’t teach their own children to cook. It’s puzzling, though, why don’t they learn to cook. They’d learn to do other things they can’t, like drive and so on, so what’s the big deal with cooking?