Regarding home schooling: being educated doesn’t make you an educator. I have a degree in math but I would still rather have my kids learn Calculus from the guy I learned it from in high school, because I’m sure he’s better at teaching it than I am. Teaching is not just talking about something that you yourself understand, it’s a special skill in itself. It’s knowing how to relate to students and how to *impart* the knowledge. Good teachers get good by doing it year after year. That said, there’s nothing stopping us from supplementing our children’s education at home.

I’m not convinced that home schooled kids do consistently better academically, but even if they do, that’s not the whole picture. Just as parents are not teachers, homes are not schools. School is much more than just sitting around and receiving instruction. It’s learning how to interact with kids other than your siblings and adults other than your parents. It’s preparation for the real world. Think of everything you learned in school that didn’t come from a teacher or a textbook — before school, on the bus, after school, in the halls, lunch, recess, study hall, sports, clubs, band, etc…
Even in the classroom there is more learning going on than just what the teacher is saying. You hear what other people say and how they say it. You see how other people dress and groom themselves. You get insights into other people’s belief systems. I think this is at the heart of why people choose to home school their kids — because for whatever reason they don’t approve of the social conditioning that happens at main stream schools. I think they are trying to protect their kids but really it just makes them poorly prepared for the real world.

I think Ron Paul gets to the root of it by trying to eliminate the incentives for illegals, one of those incentives could very well be the employers hiring them.

I don’t know if you are a parent but I am, my wife and I are very educated and we would consider home schooling for our two kids. I seem to remember that lots of home schooled kids win spelling bees and other kinds of contests routinely. I don’t remember his name but some home schooled kid recently solved some crazy “unsolvable” equation. His mother was a neurosurgeon, (father don’t remember his occupation) both highly educated people that choose this method of education for him.

I think I qualify as my kids teacher a hell of a lot more than anyone else, they’re my kids, my responsibility.

I changed my party affiliation to Republican just to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. Sure I don’t agree with all of his positions but I agree with his stance on Liberty and upholding the Constitution. You do those two things and everything falls into place.

We need a change instead electing another dumbass like Hillary, Obama, Romney, Guiliana, or whoever else.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/

Seriously, home schooling? I’ve actually had the opportunity to see quite a bit of home schooling in action and it was pretty darn scary. What qualifies parents to be teachers?

And on the immigration debate, I notice that he mentions nothing about the supply side of the equation. Compare his thoughts on immigration to Obama’s who says:

“To remove incentives to enter the country illegally, we need to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants.”

I think that’s common sense and I don’t understand why that aspect of the issue doesn’t get more attention.

This guy is actually a lot more electable than I previously thought. My fear is that the American public ain’t so smart…they’ll hear his ideas about defending the Constitution and think it sounds good but is ultimately just too naive (then elect a hillbilly like Fred Thompson).

I usually vote Libertarian, but I think Ron Paul has won my vote this time around.

Get rid of the IRS, lobbyists = absolutely wonderful.