It is very important to understand what you are teaching, even if it is just on a basic level. This seems pretty obvious, but in teaching elementary level schooling you must have a general understanding of every discipline as you more than likely will be teaching many if not all the fundamentals. Having this understanding also helps in classroom communication, and if a student has a question you will hopefully be able to answer, and if not it allows for a discussion of possible answers and opens the floor for research.