Home Schooling

Be True to Your School

In Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe, a family stranded on an island is forced to try to lead a normal life while being isolated from society. One aspect of daily life they have to emulate is school and learning. The family must take it upon themselves to teach and learn pertinent information. Similar to the Crusoe family, parents have been teaching their own children at home for years. In fact, home schooling was seen as the best form of education until the mid-1800’s, due mostly to the fact that the majority of people lived in rural areas where it was more convenient to keep children at home (Vail, ed. 346). As people started moving to urban areas and developing public education, however, they started to doubt the effectiveness of home schooling. It was even outlawed by many states in the late 1800’s. Nowadays, home schooling is legal in every state and is becoming increasingly more popular (346). Many parents are turning to home schooling as an alternative to traditional public education. Although some parents feel home schooling meets the needs of their children better than public schooling, the long-term consequences and effects on the children make it an ineffective alternative to traditional schooling for the vast