Practical momentum for modern FCS educators.
Connect FCS ED treats modern home economics as career preparation, community work, and everyday life education. Barbara Scully mixes solo guidance with educator conversations on classroom systems, advocacy, CTE leadership, technology, and FCS visibility.
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Connect FCS ED is built around the professional life of family and consumer sciences educators. Its center of gravity is the modern home economics classroom. Barbara Scully frames FCS as a serious, career-connected discipline that reaches far beyond cooking or sewing stereotypes. The show is practical first. Episodes often sound like an experienced educator walking through a task before it gets forgotten, from updating a resume to closing down an FCS lab at the end of the year. Inventory matters here. So do labels, photos, repair notes, spreadsheets, storage plans, surplus decisions, and clear communication with administration. The show also gives equal weight to advocacy. It makes the case for FCS in public K-12 education by connecting life skills, nutrition, financial literacy, human development, early childhood education, clothing and textiles, interior design, and teaching academies to adulthood and civic contribution. Guest conversations widen the frame. Dr. Sandra Adams discusses possibility thinking, work-based learning, technical vocabulary, and the idea that literacy looks different inside every career field. Tony Wiese explains Elevate FCS resources, campaign materials, graphics, proclamations, and classroom tools available through AAFCS. Dr. Katie Blatnick-Garnier brings attention to ACTE division work, awards, recognition, and national-level support for the field. Kristen, aka Baker Betty Hoffman, connects baking education to master recipes, mixing methods, lean dough, enriched dough, and confidence-building instruction. Technology is part of the mix too. An episode on artificial intelligence considers recipe recommendation systems and AI-assisted fashion design as classroom activities. The pacing is plainspoken and resource-heavy. It is not a theory show pretending classrooms run on perfect conditions. It is a working educator’s professional companion for planning, promotion, classroom management, CTE alignment, community partnerships, and the long project of keeping FCS visible.
Made for: This show is for current, future, and past family and consumer sciences educators, especially those working in secondary classrooms, CTE programs, labs, CTSOs, and advisory-board contexts.
What sets it apart: Connect FCS ED stands out by treating FCS support as both classroom operations and professional advocacy. It pairs granular teacher tasks with bigger conversations about public education, CTE recognition, work-based learning, and the future of life-skills instruction.
This podcast is about recruiting, supporting, and retaining family and consumer science (FCS) educators in the modern day home economics class. We have candid conversations, stories and share valuable resources that help us succeed in our classroom this includes classroom management, promoting FCS in schools and communities, class culture, and life skills.
Focaccia dough and sewing inventory: Barbara Scully gets the tabs open in your FCS teacher brain.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical end-of-year guide to documenting FCS equipment, lab needs, and next-year preparation.
Closing an FCS classroom at the end of the school year is treated here as a hands-on documentation job, not just a cleanup task. Barbara Scully walks through equipment checks, condition notes, user records for sewing and textile items, labels, numbering, and decisions about what…
A grounded case for making technical vocabulary part of every CTE classroom.
Possibility thinking lands here as a practical argument for treating literacy as part of every career field, not as a separate academic add-on.
Australian teaching, examined from the classroom outward.
Student-driven science, made classroom-real.
Practical ESL teaching, beyond the lesson plan.
Staffroom honesty for better education.
What male educators carry behind the face they show students.
Barbara Scully turns inventory into a concrete end-of-year checklist for FCS labs.
Sandra Adams, a CTE administrator and incoming ACTE Vice President for Administration, centers the episode on “possibility thinking” and the “Five P’s of WBL” for student performance.
Dr.
Kristen Hoffman, known online as Baker Betty, describes moving from culinary school and restaurant work to an 11-year baking-content business launched in 2011.
Sharon Davis describes the Home Baking Association as a 75-plus-year nonprofit consortium supporting family and consumer sciences educators with baking resources.
Barbara Scully’s Connect FCS Ed episode 100 features EverFi educator Hana Kim explaining free digital resources for FCS classrooms.
The episode introduces a new co-host from Phi Upsilon Omicron and discusses the organization's role in supporting FCS educators.
The host welcomes listeners back to Season 2, shares her experience returning to school after winter break, and sets the stage for discussions on supporting FCS educators.
Host Barbara Scully interviews retired educator Joyce Miles about her research on Ellen Swallow Richards and the relevance of FCS history to modern teaching.
Host Barbara Scully interviews the Tech Twins about their journey in education and their Teachers Pay Teachers business, focusing on technology integration in family and consumer sciences.