What even is FACS?

Not long ago, someone asked me what I majored in at Morgan.

I said "Family and Consumer Sciences." I usually wait for the follow-up question, "What's that?"

I said "It's kinda like human services, it used to be called Home Ec...like Home Economics....like you know on TV when kids have to take cooking classes and baby classes and family planning and stuff like that? I went to school for that"

He says, "Oh so you went to school to be a wife?" in a very harmless tone but I was irked nonetheless lol.

"No, I did the program because I wanted to be a teacher and they have an education track and a fashion merchandising track. I did the education track so I had to take classes like human sexuality, marriage and family relations, family resource management, consumer education, nutrition-- there was a nutritional science class (that class was hard af - I had to take it twice) and a cooking science class, and I even had to take a sewing class and textiles class. It was really interesting. I liked it"

I told him that I kinda just fell into the program because I originally transferred to Morgan as an Elementary Education major but I found the Elementary Math class to be too difficult and instead of asking for help in the one class, I said "I'm just gonna change my major so I don't have to take it" Chile, idk but everything happens the way it does for a reason. I definitely enjoyed FACS more and I found the classes to be more interesting. I could still learn to be a teacher but I could also learn about more things that I liked to learn about.

This is how FACS is defined according to the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences (AAFCS): Family and Consumer Sciences is the people-centered science, focused on supporting individuals, families, and communities live healthy successful lives through the provision of education, research, and technology.

When I was in college, they told us that FACS was about improving the quality of life for individuals, families, and communities. I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with this degree. My advisor said I could be a teacher but she didn't really help me understand how to get there. She said "you'll just apply and then you'll have to take the praxis." Like um okay I guess.

Once I finally graduated, I didn't end up becoming a teacher right away. I did a lot of different things. First I did taxes for a non-profit, then I was an insurance adjuster, then I worked for Social Security Administration (they walked me outta there lol that's when I learned I had ADHD), then I had been applying for jobs while I was at SSA and had something lined up with a Black engineering firm (that was a cool job but the subcontractor was racist), then I finally became a Family and Consumer Sciences teacher at a High School in Baltimore County Public Schools. That was when I thought this was my forever job. The job I would retire doing. I really enjoyed the work and the topic I was teaching.

The first year I taught Child Development and we had a preschool attached to the program. It was a free preschool program for the community. I would post in Facebook groups to find families interested in the decades old program and would usually have a really good response. I capped the program at 10 children each year and would end up with 6-10 kids. They would come 3 days each week (Tues, Wed, Thurs) and they would stay from 8am-12pm. The school day was from 7:30am to 2:30pm. After the preschoolers left I would have a 30 min lunch and and "free" period after that until the end of the day. I would be exhausted by then so eventually I would just spend the free period sitting still in quiet, scrolling on my phone when I was really supposed to be planning. But how could I plan when I just spent the whole morning running around like a chicken with its head cut off? It was an excellent program though. The students were really engaged and the preschoolers were really fun. It ignited my creativity again which was paramount to me truly finding myself and starting my art career. Plus the students in the program could earn their 90-hour certification if they completed an internship after taking two years of my class.

The second year they converted the program to the Teacher Academy of Maryland. This was a political move on Baltimore County Public Schools (BCPS) part because the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) was trying to professionalize the daycare certification process by encouraging students interested in the field to take the CDA, a very expensive comprehensive exam that would require several hours of training that would create an accessibility issue for a lot of students interested in pursuing childcare careers. This was not something we wanted for our students so the only other option was to encourage students to become certified teachers which would require them to attend a 4-year college/university. This was different than the previous program because the students would graduate from high school with a certification instead of having to go to college. Completing the TAM program would make them eligible for scholarships and up to 9 college credits at select universities in Maryland. Not a bad deal but not as good as the old deal. It was also really hard for me to maintain the preschool program, which drew the kids into taking my class in the first place, and integrate the new curriculum into the program. This eventually became overwhelming and I quit in the middle of the school year in year three.

So lately I've been exploring FACS again. Going back to the basics. I started a degree in a Masters of Social Work program at Morgan and the ancestors didn't want me to finish. I took that as a redirection towards something more fulfilling. Towards something that doesn't quite feel like work and that's how I started to seriously consider a career in the arts. Art is seriously my life. I had shut it away for so long and I was so miserable without having the ability to express myself. Now that I've reintroduced art into my life, I don't know how I could be doing anything else.

That's what brings me back to FACS. I'm relearning about FACS without the intention of becoming a teacher. I'm looking more into the Fashion Merchandising track because I've always been into fashion (my students always commented on my "Ms. Medley fits lol") and I come from a big fashion family on both sides. So I've been exploring the idea of wearable art, upcycled fashion, curated vintage pieces, and having my digital art printed on merchandise.

These are the content areas for FACS according to AAFCS:

• Culinary arts, hospitality, and tourism 

• Education and training

• Food science and nutrition 

• Health management and wellness 

• Housing and interior design 

• Human/child development and family relations 

• Personal and family finance 

• Textiles, apparel, and retailing 

and these are some suggested fields of practice for FACS according to the AAFCS:

• Academic education at these levels: 

  • Early childhood 

  • Elementary 

  • Secondary 

  • Higher Education 

• Community education for adults and youth, including Cooperative Extension programs 

• Business and industry 

• Government 

• Health and human services

My biggest goal is to develop a Cultural Arts Center for Black and Diasporic Art. So stay tuned to see if I can really make that happen. I'm sure I'll be able to use lots of what I learned in my FACS degree program and apply it to my leadership in this area. In the meantime, I'll just keep exploring and figuring out where FACS (and God) will lead me.

Peace.