A boy killed himself after being bullied in school.   After Columbine,  several other school shootings, and stories of kids with guns planning to do great harm, one child committing suicide might seem a small thing.  But it’s not.  If anything it struck me as worse.

The article talks about how this boy was repeatedly bullied.  His mother reported problems to the school 7 or 8 times.  The school sang its “we try hard” song.  The day he killed himself young Jaheem brought home a report card with As and Bs.

I am not a fan of government schooling.  It brings together some potentially talented people, locks them down with rules, curriculum, and systems designed through a political process where motivations, goals, and outcomes aren’t always what we’d want or expect.  Children are left for stretches of time without significant oversight of their personal interactions.  Cliques, relentless teasing, small acts of violence when adults aren’t looking, ostracization, … children can be cruel, but also, power structures develop in their many waking hours at these institutions.  Our children are faced with this beginning generally at age 6. Some kindergartens go all day.  Required pre-school is coming to some states.

What would have happened if Jaheem’s mother had other options?  Perhaps she felt she couldn’t handle homeschooling and if a working mother that may not have been an option.  What if she could choose schools?  What if the school the other side of the street had a different system, one which created an environment where teasing of this sort wouldn’t occur?

And perhaps more importantly, what if schools knew that Jaheem’s mother, that all parents, had that choice?  Somehow, I suspect, the problems these children deal with, problems that seem earth shattering to them, problems that seem earth shattering more so because of the many waking hours they spend in these institutions … somehow I think they’d be far less of an issue.

I mourn for Jaheem.  I mourn for all the Jaheems out there who may not commit suicide, but who die a little everyday because of treatment like this.  And, while I homeschool mine, I long for the day when school choice will eliminate the loss of energy … and in this case the loss of life … that the current system brings with it.

I’ve wondered what makes a libertarian. What makes some people take offense at the nanny state and some not. What makes people take personal responsibility more seriously, community involvement more seriously, being politically active more seriously and some not.I compared myself to my husband one day and drew a faulty conclusion. But I’d heard the story a few other times since and wondered if there was more to it.

I was a great student k12. I got good grades, good test scores, was well behaved in class. I did the same in college. I learned to please teachers and do what was required. My husband, he was a rebel. Son of an english teacher he was generally ahead of his schoolmates and incredibly bored. He wasn’t interested in pleasing the teachers. He routinely questioned them and the work assigned. He was interested in learning.

I was in my 30s before I started to question. And the more I questioned the more I realized you need to question all the time - question people, information, sources, spin, and probably most importantly question yourself.

Beliefs become ingrained. And much of what I was taught in public school is belief. I got a completley different view of history in college. A completely different view of politics. I certainly wasn’t taught to question, not in my government school education. In fact, if anything, questioning was discouraged. From the early days of raise your hand to ask a question or go to the bathroom to the days of being guided to conclusions about literature we were reading, public schooling is more training than learning.

As I had children my questioning became more pointed and far less patient. One essay, published in The Libertarian Enterprise, outlined my journey into full fledged and take no prisoners questioning. Mother’s instinct heightened my unwillingness to “go along”.

When it came to education it’s no surprise, then, that we chose to go an alternative route. We tried private school but found many of the same issues there. And now we homeschool.

But from very early on we’ve taught our children to question. “Mommy’s wearing a pretty yellow shirt” I’d say, wearing a blue shirt. And question they did. Their growing minds figure out things very quickly and need very little, usually no, help to do so.

I’m convinced that our country has lost the involved citizenry it once had. We vote, we might go to local meetings, but the expectation that we’d be active in our government the way people once were is gone. I strongly suspect that is in part due to how our young people learn. We’re trained to go along, not question. We’re trained that our government is good, is beneficent, and is powerful.

I’m teaching my children to not go along, to not believe but to know and to research, to look for facts and logic, not emotion and spin. I’m teaching my children to be involved, to have and value personal responsibility. And I’m teaching them to question - question information, question people, question statements they read or see on TV, question our leaders, to ask if it’s right not necessarily political correct.

So here we are at Learning Freedom. About the freedom to learn the way your family needs to, and about learning about freedom, two things that I no longer believe are disconnected. I expect to broach topics that keep the conversation about Learning Freedom going.

Welcome.

The Ron Paul Revolution gave me hope that the United States’ love of freedom isn’t gone. His campaign was a brushfire igniting the country. The poll results weren’t what I’d hoped for and, granted, not everyone is a fan, but the grassroots support and individual involvement his campaign - no, his person - generated was a breath of fresh air. His politics crossed the aisle. His anti-war stance rang with the left, his fiscal conservatism rang with the right, his limited government position rang with the libertarians. And he has a track record to prove that he means what he says.

Our choices this year are high spending military or high spending social programs. More of the same, choosing lesser of two evils, compromising because we feel we have to, because it’s the system, what we have to deal with, like it or not. Our personal liberties will continue to erode whether because homeland security and the war will treat us more like criminals everyday or because the nanny state, taking care of us regardless of our need or desire, will expand.

I decided a few years ago that accepting the system was part of the problem. I needed to take a stand. I had to try something. My husband and I joined the Free State Project and we have since moved to the Free State of New Hampshire. Accepting a bad system is a bad choice. Working to change it, even when it seems an impossible task, is better.

I think Ron Paul is a long shot for president in 2008. But no other candidate is right. I won’t vote for the lesser of two evils. I won’t compromise. My candidate may not win, but I will vote for him anyway. I will vote for the best candidate.  I will vote for Ron Paul.