You learned that in school!?

Are any of these classes still taught in schools these days (public or private)?

They tried to teach me craft and sewing and suchlike but, I beat them.

I think reading and writing and counting are practical skills, and I learned them at school.

I can interpret contour maps and such.

I draw contour maps... but I didn't learn that until land arch school, not when I was a kid.
But that reminds me, we did have good (to me) geography classes in grammar school.

Basic sewing and cooking and sex ed.

Yup.

Well, not the technical sex stuff - the teacher who did the cooking part of home ec talked to us a lot about sex. Mrs. Abbott. Smart woman. She told us that anyone who told us that 12/13/14/15 year olds didn't/couldn't/shouldn't have sexual feelings/interests was mmmmm lying to us (or didn't know much).

I don't really recall details about the electives at the middle school that I went to as a student. There was Home Ec which I think everyone had to/could take. I took cooking in high school and typing too. But none were restricted to or mandatory for either gender.

I'll ask at the middle school I work at.

I took a typing class in High School. This was back before computers, so typing skills were assumed to be used for secretarial work, so I didn't even want to take the class.

But I ended up becoming a computer programmer so I practically lived on a keyboard ever since college. Typing is the most useful skill I retained from high school.

I had school classes in woodworking and photography (learned how to develop film). My first high school, you had to take a major in liberal arts, business, don't recall what else. But we moved away to Texas.

I don't remember learning anything in high school. But I must have because I graduated college!

It was actually hard to think of anything practical I learnt - except maybe milking a cow (which isn't that practical in my current life). But I did get a good grounding in the sciences and economics which made reading and expanding on that knowledge significantly more enjoyable.

But I am still pissed off that they hid quantum mechanics from us for five years - why teach us that electrons orbit around the nucleus like planets, then crap all over it?

Because of absolutely wonderful & inspiring English teachers at years 11 & 12, I discovered that my "funny" ideas were valid, important & worth developing further! ... you have no idea how much this meant to a misfit bookworm growing up (miserably) in a small country town. Doors to freedom were opened!

Basic cooking and sewing in Jr High, typing in HS, but my favorite "special" skill was a three week session when our French class took over the Home Ec room and learned to make sauces, omelettes, pastries, and soups. My mother never cooked another egg while I was living at home once I made her her first omelette au fines herbs.

I'm a Title 9 baby. For those out of the USA, Title 9 made it mandatory to offer the same school programs for girls and boys back in the early 1970's. Before Title 9, girls often couldn't play basketball, soccer or take shop classes. After Title 9, whatever was offered to boys had to be offered for girls, but in the process it became optional to take home economics and what we called "shop". I always thought everyone should take shop (power tools, mechanical repairs, basic plumbing etc) and home eco. (sewing, cooking, household budgeting). Most schools no longer offer such things due to budget cuts. In the last 40 or so years I think we have eliminated teaching these skills in favor of things like extremely early reading programs, calculus, and chemistry. Personally, the day I took the SAT was the last day I used calculus. I would have been better prepared for life if someone had taught me early how to sweat a pipe and hang a light fixture.

Oh -- and these days, my girls had "Life Skills" in Jr High, which is a co-ed cooking class and they are required to take a semester of personal economics and finance before they can graduate HS.

I wish I had! For all the time I've spent grinding out code, I still can't type
worth a damn.

In my midwestern jr high I learned the usual home ec stuff like cooking and sewing, but we also covered childcare, child development and interior design which included color coordination, furniture styles, and designing the interior of a home.

I also took a speech class which included a "demonstration" during which I made peanut brittle for the class. Another speech we had to give required that we provide "visuals." This was obviously WAY before Power Point. Somewhere, I got my hands on a strip of blank film, drew my illustrations on it with markers and had the teacher turn to the next frame when I motioned during my speech. It was on one of those old film projectors that required one to turn frame by frame as a tape player did the sound. It had something to do with some Erma Bombeck stories, but I don't remember exactly.

When Bear and I went kayaking last year I was the one that knew how to row and maneuver. He and his oldest daughter asked "How do you know this?" (shocked, since I'm viewed as the last that would have known.) I learned it in jr high PE. We went canoeing. We also did archery, learned The Hustle and the Bus Stop, and were taught survival skills such as how to build a campfire and follow a water source to civilization... all things my kids have never done in PE.

Once a year we got to select a special elective and the whole school did a 4 week thing where twice per week regular schedules were shortened to allow for an hour of learning a special skill of interest. I took macrame and made a hanging plant holder that I held onto for a gazillion moves.

My little sister in Oklahoma took welding and made a picnic table with attached bench seats a few years ago, and my brother took a couple of other shop type classes. I assume from that that the midwest is still leading the way in providing non-college bound kids with life and job skills they can actually use to make a living.

They did try to teach us practical skills in high school no matter what the subject was. Typing, driver's education, health education, introduction to computers are what other people have already mentioned. But there was something practical taught in every class. In English literature we learned how to write economically. In drama, we learned about television and radio production. In biology we learned about ecology and conservation. In history we learned about the root causes of civil unrest.

actually I took a course in hunting/shooting, we went on a duck hunt and also practiced shotgun use on the athletic field behind the school shooting skeet, there were a number of girls as well as many boys that took the course. after the duck hunting we all went to the home economics kitchen and dressed and cooked the ducks we had shot. I also took typing.

I learned that pictures are hung, people are hanged. Don't know why, but that stuck with me from my English teacher.

I learned how to sew a button, balance a checkbook and cook some basic stuff along with being safe in the kitchen.

At my Junior High, both girls and boys had to take Home Ec (sewing and cooking) and Shop (wood and metal).

Like Squinney, I also learned how to dance. I can waltz, hustle and do Greek dancing (if they ever remake Zorba the Greek, I am so there -- grapevine step, baby!). Learned CPR. Also learned how to write, essays, fiction, etc. I really had a fabulous 12th grade English teacher and she taught all styles of writing, even poetry.