Home education is, quite simply, the practice of teaching one's own children at home. As long as there have been parents and children, "homeschooling" has been happening. It was only with the emergence of widespread compulsory public education that this age-old method of instruction has been somewhat marginalized in the minds of educators and parents as an educational option.

Foreign service workers of missionaries who, by choice or necessity, did not send their children to boarding schools, continued the tradition of home education. Children who had illnesses that kept them from attending school were frequently taught at home. Furthermore, families who lived in remote areas and isolated regions answered their children's educational needs with homeschooling.

Within the past 25 to 30 years, home education experienced a renaissance as parents began to question whether the public education system or existing private schools were the most beneficial option for their individual chlidren. They also wondered if they might personally be able to do a better job. Well, parents discovered they could do a great job. Then they told two friends, who told two friends, and so on until the modern home education movement was born. The rest, as they say, is history.

Click here to read a short history of HSLDA and home education in Canada