> I must say, this is a strange poll. What do paperclips have to do with homeschooling?

Obviously the question was a joke, but is it really that outrageous of one?

Read the latest Site Journal entry, which has been advertised on the front page, just diagonally south of the Reader Poll itself, since yesterday. It describes how a frivolous Reader Poll question was used by a homeschooler as a teaching opportunity. Anything can be a learning experience: examine a phenomenon of life (spectacular or mundane) and analyze it, encouraging the student to devise his or her own theories to test. This is what so much of education (homeschooling or otherwise) is *supposed to be*.

Although the poll question was a joking response to the letter I posted in the Site Journal, it may be profitably taken seriously. Is it all THAT crazy a thought that the physics of paper clips could analyzed as a learning exercise?