This Week's Poll from the Lester & Charlie Institute of Forward Thinking!
God bless Ron Paul. Really. He's terribly worried about your kids. Worried that they'll complete their education and still not understand the biblical principle of self-government. Or know how to defend the free market. Start a home business. Operate their YouTube channel.
Those are just a few of the bullets in Paul's recently launched curriculum and strategy for putting just about every child into home schooling.
Now, we have nothing against home schooling. Public school isn't for everyone. But, in the wrong hands, home schooling can produce bizarre results, as we discussed before regarding a confused home-schooled girl who was terrified that legalized gay marriage would lead to ducks taking over the world.
Gotta give him credit though: Paul also wants kids to know how to "write effectively," "understand mathematics" and "understand basic science." Those are admirable goals! Still, it's hard to ignore that Ron Paul himself once called global warming "the greatest hoax in hundreds of years." Maybe understanding basic science doesn't involve listening to actual scientists.
So where does Paul land on the scale? He dismisses school textbooks as being "dumbed down by committee." And many are, especially those textbooks that are written in Texas and teach things like bible-based math, how the Loch Ness Monster disproves evolution and tell kids how and why to avoid dirty, smelly hippies.
Paul wants home-schoolers to step away from textbooks and focus on "primary sources" -- presumably things like the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Not a bad idea in general, but take the Constitution: you can't just toss a copy at a fifth grader and expect him to understand it - not without the context of a couple centuries of interpretation by the courts. Without the context, it means anything the kid wants it to - leading to things like, well, Rand Paul.
Will the Paul curriculum catch on? Will home-schoolers be lugging the Rosetta Stone into their living rooms to share with their little brothers and sisters at Home Show & Tell?
There's only one thing we know for sure: Paul's fellow conservatives are not likely to be outdone! If the "Paul Curriculum" takes off, other conservatives are bound to jump on the bandwagon. And that's what has us excited. How will they carve out a space in the homeschooling craze? The mind reels!
So tell us: What text are YOU excited to see in a conservative home-school environment?
(Quick Programming Note: Find out how you can be part of Lester & Charlie's new book project! Click here: Please Stand By)
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