On a recent observation day at the Japanese public elementary school that my children attend, I wandered into unfamiliar territory. I saw a mother entering a classroom I had never noticed. I followed her in and got quite a surprise.
I had stepped into a lesson in katei-ka (home economics). A group of fifth-graders had just completed a sewing project and were giving oral presentations on what they had learned. What surprised me was that half the kids in the classroom were boys.
In the United States, where I grew up, home economics is not taught in elementary school. When I started junior high school in the early '70s, only girls took home economics. Boys took industrial arts, or "shop," where they learned woodworking and simple repairs.