No doubt about it. Choosing what battles to fight (or not) prevents stress, headaches and frustration. Both for the student and the teacher.
Music making becomes wonderful when you realise that your average C Major scale could actually be as difficult to play as a Chopin Etude. Of course, a thin line must be drawn to prevent insanity from moving in.

Hmmm, okay I only just now skimmed this topic, so I'm sure I missed much of the debate, however, I thought of something I have been taught since day one in architecture school (which, btw, I was interested to hear you're an engineer MeLisa, since I have to go to school with arce's who approach architecture from an engineer's pov. Makes for heated debates and vastly different design concepts from all the students in each studio)--

"Rules are made to be broken." I have heard this in every studio, for every project since I started arch. school four years ago. It's how architecture is made vs. making something that's already been done to death, i.e. suburbia and big box stores.

Architecture and music are very similar. I have heard so many architecture lectures that were about music more than architecture, and one of my most praised designs was one I designed by basing it on a Bartok piece; I definitely broke a few rules on that building. Music is the same way, you have to break the rules to be more creative, or at least to be more real.

However, you have to know and understand the rules before you can break them. If you don't know the rules, how can you break them? That's why teachers want you to do as they say, exactly, and follow all the rules, so that when you are ready, you can break them but not do it in such a way that your building collapses and kills people, or your music might sound fine but you're physically hurting yourself because of something you're doing.

It's all a big oxymoron, really.

Amy, That was quite interesting and astute. Way "coo", as you say. I never thought about it like that before. (Was that the Bartok I emailed you about that time?)

Yes, it was. It was a really fun project, and I got good feedback from my teachers just for choosing my concept so different than the typical, "My concept is about [dramatic pause] movement."

During the jury they asked me if I had a cd of the piece, which I did since I had listened to it probably four million times in six short weeks. So the whole class, who listens to way too much Nelly and the St. Lunatics simply because they all hail from St. Louis, got to hear some Bartok. It was, as my nephew says, "coo"!

Excellent analogy, Amy. "Can't run free in the woods before you learn to walk", I'd say.

I think a teacher should be able to explain any instruction given (depending on the age of the student), even if occasionally it is only, "I'm not quite sure why this works but it does. I can however tell you why method B and method C don't work and these are the problems you will encounter." But the student may have actually come up with method D which never entered my mind. So I'd vote for open minds on all sides.
BUT if the student insists on too many explanations, lesson time will be wasted and you will have someone who has listened to a lot of teacher blather, but hasn't actually DONE the item in question. So most student I've had have questioned only rarely, once they have learned that when they do, they get a solid reason.
And Bontempo, have I ever fallen over that fine line between the C major scale and Chopin etude difficulty sometimes!