Some people contend that teachers influence the intellectual and social development of children more as formal education begins. I personally agree with this perspective and will further explain in this essay.
To begin with, teachers can easily dominate the influence on the intellectual development of children thanks to the school curicullum and their expertise in teaching. Firstly, it is true that the school curicullum is always carefully customized to the cognitive development stage of children at each age based on research on learning sciences, which help teachers to provide sequential lessons that can gradually expand the zone of proximal development of students. This creates an advantage of teachers to make greater process in developing intellectual skills in children compared to non-experts like parents. Secondly, teachers usually have been trained to teach students at that age and hold effective learning activities in classroom in order to qualified for teaching officially. This guarantees for the fact that they can convey knowledge in the more suitable way for children at that specific developmental stage and develop more meaningful learning activities compared to other unqualified educators, which marks their significant influence on children’s intellectual development.
Another key aspect is that teachers have the most of the influence on children’s social development because they can hold and control more meaningful social interactions and communications among children. It is true that teachers have been trained to hold engaging learning activities that foster social interactions among children within a classroom, such as group projects, class discussions or games. These activities can help to build a sense of community in children in an educational setting, which is difficult to get in other environments due to the lack of educational context or the appropriate peers for them to communicate. Moreover, social interactions within a classroom usually are monitored and controlled by teachers, allowing them to interrupt any inappropriate behaviours. This helps to guarantee that children are taught to have the correct manners towards peers and adults and foster positive relationships from a young age, which is sometimes challenging for busy parents since they cannot monitor their kids’ interactions with friends all the time.
In conclusion, when formal education begins, teachers can influence more on children’s intellectual development since they have specialised curicullum and expertise to teach, and also on kids’ social developement as teachers can hold educational activities that foster meaningful social interactions and monitor them carefully.