IELTS Task 2 sample essay: Are Parents the Best Teachers?

It is sometimes said that parents are the best teachers a child can have. I agree that parents are the most important teachers of values and everyday habits, but for academic subjects and social skills, schools and trained teachers usually do a better job.

There are things that children learn mainly at home, and parents teach them better than anyone. From their earliest years, children copy the way their parents speak, treat other people and deal with problems. A child who sees a parent read for pleasure, apologise after an argument or work hard at something difficult absorbs these habits far more deeply than any lesson could teach them. Parents also know their own child intimately: they notice when the child is anxious or bored and can adjust immediately, something a teacher with thirty pupils cannot always do.

However, most parents are not equipped to teach everything a child needs to learn. Few adults can explain chemistry, advanced mathematics and a foreign language with equal confidence, and even those who can may lack the training to explain ideas in a way that suits each stage of a child's development. School also teaches lessons that are difficult to learn at home. In a classroom, children must cooperate with people they did not choose, accept the authority of adults outside the family and cope with both success and failure in front of their peers.

The ideal, therefore, is a partnership in which parents shape character and support learning at home, while teachers provide knowledge and a wider social world.

In conclusion, parents are the best teachers of values and behaviour, but they cannot usually replace professional teachers for academic learning or the social experience of school.