Discuss education as a bipolar and tripolar process
Answers
Education as a Tri-Polar Process
education is a bipolar process in which one personality acts upon another to modify the development of other personality. It considers that the in the process of education two persons are involved. The one is the educator and the other is the educand. It proposes that the teacher seeks the modification of the development not only through imparting knowledge and skills, but also through her direct influence on the child’s personality. The bipolarity of the educational process ceases to exist when the educator and the educand both become one and the same person. It so happens when the educand feels a drive to educate himself, when he tries to modify his own nature, develop his own will and purpose, build his own character, acquires knowledge and skills by his own efforts. In that case, education becomes unipolar. It is then when educational process achieves the main ideal. Self-ex-pression, self-motivation, self-improvement and self-control become the key words and bipolarity ceases to exist.
The educational process not only has a psychological side involving the educator and the educand, it has the sociological aspect too. The educand has to live in and for the society he belongs to. True education comes through the stimulation of the educand’s endowments by the demands of the social situation in which he/she finds them. The educator is requires to stimulate the educand’s power in the total social setting. Thus, the social aspect of the educational process becomes more important than the psychological aspect. Hence, educational process is tri-polar in nature as it involves the interaction between the two of the three namely the social factors, the educator and the educand. The function of the educator becomes then the modification of the personality of the educand in the light of the needs of the society. In this sense, John Dewey holds, education is a tri-polar process and not bipolar one.