Its your responsibility as a parent to feed, clothe and care for your child. It is the teachers responsibility to make sure that child learns...and we know not all kids learn the same way and some need to know the validity of why they are being asked to do something.
Even if it is beyond them at the time?
Because that is occasionally the case.
I also disagree fundamentally that it is ever a teacher's job to make SURE that any student learns. That is, to some degree, out of any other human being's pay grade.
A teacher definitely has the responsibility to provide an environment which
allows learning for every student.
But some of what children learn isn't stuff that they'd PREFER to learn, too. I think that learning that sometimes they need to trust that authorities have reasons that they may not fully grasp is an okay lesson to learn.
Providing that such authority has demonstrated trustworthiness over time, of course.
I get what you're saying, Cola. I just think that it isn't correct to presume that EVERY requirement of a child 4-8yo is backed by an explanation that: a) such a child is prepared to hear, b) is brief and clear in terms of cause and effect, and/or c) is a good use of anyone's time.
I remember battling with my own DD over stuff like this-- trust me, I have one of these kids myself. If she doesn't see a good reason for something, she is incredibly mulish.
But some things, yeah-- she should have just done them the way the adults in her life asked her to. Even though she didn't
believe us about the reasons. Sometimes it really does just boil down to "my judgment is substantially better than yours* and I think that you should."
* by virtue of age, life experience, training, etc. This is why people pay physicians for diagnoses and don't (generally) pay people like Oprah for medical advice. Of course, a fair number of people also feel fully qualified to google away and diagnose themselves these days, too, so... maybe that proves my point, actually.
