A child's education is of vital importance to his future. The success of education mainly depends on the children themselves, their parents and their teachers. I believe that education is as much the instilling of moral values as the imparting of knowledge. While I agree that teacher's play an important role in a child's education, I strongly believe that the parent's influence is even more vital.
A child is extremely sensitive to his surroundings. He will tend to mimic the actions and words of the people around him. A child will naturally learn from the people he is exposed to and the longer the exposure, the stronger the influence. Parents stay with their children for most of their lives especially their childhood. While a child's teacher usually change every few years or even annually at times. Within the first few years of the child's life, when he is most receptive to his surroundings and is building his fundamental nature, his parents are with him while his teachers have not yet entered his life. It is his parents who imparted him the most basic knowledge of reading and writing. It is also the parents' moral values that the child is first exposed to. Thus, the degree of impact that parents have on the child's education in his early life no doubt exceeds that of the teachers.
The institution of education that the child attends also determines how the child's education will proceed. The quality of education as well as the content delivered are quite different between a religious and a non-religious school as well as between a private and a public school. Although it is the teachers in these institutions who teach the child, the important decision of which type of school the child enters is decided by the parents. Parents can decide what type of institution their child enrolls in and whether the child will take any enrichment courses. They also influence the child's choice of subject combinations. Parents hold power over the educational path that the child will take. This power that parents hold over the child's education is something that teachers' lack. Therefore, parents play a more important role than teachers in this case.
Many people argue that teachers has the advantage in imparting academic knowledge. A higher proportion of the a child's studying time is at school. Therefore, most of the learning is done in school with the help of their teachers. Teachers are also the first to enlighten the child on some aspects.
While it is the teachers who impart knowledge, it is the parents who enforce it. Parents guide their child through his homework, clarify the facts that the child is uncertain of, supervise the child's learning process and correct them if they spot his mistakes. While not all parents actively support academic learning, those who do so play a role no less important than that of the teachers.
Furthermore, despite the existence of civics and moral education in schools, parents still play the major role in teaching a child the correct social values. Ethics and morals cannot be learnt from the textbook. Interaction and experience are needed for the child to understand what is right and wrong on a higher level and in a more flexible manner. The people around them provide children with living examples. Thus, parents who spend more time with the child than teachers affect the child's social values more.
In conclusion, due to the more interactive nature of parent-child relationship compared to student-teacher relationship, I believe that a child is more likely to be influenced by his parents and he tends to approach his parents more for education. Hence, I agree that "parents are more important than teachers in a child's education."
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