For some reason I really like this idea. When spren come through to the physical realm, they lose a lot of their memories and knowledge. When they bond their knight, it's kind of like the spren and the knight are growing and discovering themselves together, and it makes for a very interesting partnership. But here's the thing. If a spren has been around for literally thousands of years, and the person is just a regular person, once the spren gets their memories and their mind back, the relationship between them and the person seems like it would change. The spren is way older and knows way more. Why wouldn't they grow to have a sort of mentor/apprentice relationship?
This makes sense to me for older spren, although I guess in modern Roshar some of the spren are relatively young? I know Sylphrena is old because she survived the recreance, but the other honor spren are sort of newish and they've never bonded before.
If the highspren have been around since before the recreance, I feel that it is justified that they treat their knights like apprentices.
Small tangent, but I wrote this whole thing with the word human and then had to go back and change it to person because I remembered that singers could also bond spren. I don't think person is species specific but who knows.