DICKINSON — At the Southwest Area Career and Technical Education Academy (SWCTE), local students have the opportunity of learning important life skills through the Family and Consumer Science (FACS) department.
There are a variety of different courses and pathways that SWCTE provides. With courses such as Introduction to Teaching, Introduction to Sewing and Independent Living, the FACS department provides students opportunities to pursue teaching and fashion careers as well as learn skills that will help them become self-sufficient young adults. FACS teacher Heather Blum said it was the life skills that makes the department she works in so important.
“You get on Facebook and you see people say, ‘Kids of today don’t have the life skills,’” she said. “I teach them—I give them life skills.”
“If they’re taking FACS classes, they’re getting the life skills, and that is tenfold fantastic because kids need the life skills, independence and creativity,” Blum added.
Dorvall Bedford / The Dickinson Press
Blum sees future growth for the FACS department. She specifically teaches the fashion-oriented classes and pathway, which educates students about sewing, fashion design and fashion marketing. Blum is looking into providing work-based learning for her fashion students and has been reaching out to seamstresses and business professionals.
As an advisor for Family Career Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), Blum has seen her students join the organization and compete on both a state and national level. One of Blum’s FCCLA students designed her own gown for a panel of judges, explaining the work that went into it, the cost of making it and how she would go about selling it. Blum also noted that she and fellow teacher Laura Tangen had a student take second place in the nation for early childhood education.
Blum said she has watched meek freshmen become confident seniors in her classes and in the FCCLA.
“Teaching is one of the most rewarding careers that you can ever do,” she said. “It doesn’t show right away, but later down the road you’ll see someone and they’ll say, ‘Your class was one of my favorites in the entire world.’”
Alena Anderson, a Dickinson High School sophomore and FCCLA member, said she started to take the FACS classes at SWCTE because she enjoys arts and crafts. She said she has learned about topics that she sees as taken for granted such as what goes into a meal and the different techniques for sewing basic clothes. Anderson took Introduction to Sewing because she wants to compete in fashion design for FCCLA.
“Even though sewing can be seen as just a hobby, it can be useful in day-to-day life,” she said. “I like actually doing hands-on things… getting to experiment with it on my own.”
Anderson has a small business where she sells crochet creations that she makes. While she is thinking of going into a career related to biology and genetics, Anderson hopes to grow her business with what she is learning in through the FACS courses. She recommends other students to take FACS classes because of the skills they can learn.
“You can gain a skill that is important to have,” Anderson said. “It can bring people together, and it can be just a fun thing to know.”
