Your children should understand delegated authority. If you homeschool, you might have to be more intentional about teaching them this concept.
As the norm, they should obey their teachers. But you should help them understand why they need to obey their teachers, and in this case, “because I said so” is actually a legitimate reason.
In fact, it is the reason.
As the father, you are responsible for your children’s education. As you attempt to manage this responsibility, you may decide to delegate part of it to others. Teachers would fall under this umbrella. And yes, this also means public school teachers.
A teacher’s authority derives from your authority. Despite what the teacher’s union or local school board may insinuate, teaching your children is your business, and teachers are not free agents. They are agents of the father. When they think they are agents of the state, which they predominantly do, since that is where their paychecks come from, priorities get scrambled. You get bizarre inversions where teachers, who think their authority derives from their “expertise” or some such nonsense, claim that education is no business of the parents.
And because teachers are agents of the father, your children should obey their teachers and listen to them. You have ordained their teachers with some of your authority, and so they should listen to their teachers as if they were listening to the words of their father.
There are exceptions, of course. Delegated authority is never perfect. The stream gets thin in one place, it rushes with rapids in another, and somewhere a family of beavers has built a dam. Fathers and teachers are human. Flawed.
Delegated authority is also limited. A teacher tasked with teaching a child English grammar should not take it upon herself to teach her students how to shoot a gun. Nor is it her business to teach them about sexual morality and polycules.
But the default assumption should be one of deference and obedience.
After all, your own authority as a father is delegated as well. It is not innate but flows from the Father. Delegated authority is built into the foundation of the world. Therefore, to navigate the world properly, your children should understand the concept. They should practice it.
This means that to be a responsible father, you and their mother cannot be their only teachers. Some options, if you homeschool:
Music lessons (piano, guitar, etc.)
Bible class at church
Martial arts
Organized sports
Art classes
Co-ops where other parents teach certain subjects
If there is a problem, your children should feel comfortable appealing to a higher authority. You, for starters. But if you have delegated authority, you should be prepared to give that authority the benefit of the doubt and always listen to the other side of the story.
The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.
Proverbs 18:17
Your job is to discern the truth, not make excuses for your children.
“Well, Sarah is very special…”
“My little Johny would never do that…”
Children learn quickly how to play their parents off of each other if there is not a united front, and the same is true for teachers and parents. Don’t be naive.
And because you should give your children’s teachers the benefit of the doubt, you should be very careful when putting them under the authority of those teachers. Do your due diligence. Don’t choose the default just because it’s easy.