Topic: We can usually learn much more from people whose views we share than from people whose

views contradict our own; disagreement can cause stress and inhibit learning.

Learning is a process in which, some new ideas are injected into your mind, and you are made to focus on those ideas and make them a part of your information base. As can be seen, this process involves two very important stages: Injection of ideas and focussing on them. The learning process is inhibited if any one of them gets affected. Here we are concentrating on the learning that takes place from a person who is refered to as a "teacher". This process is not just a simple input-output process. Effort is r equired from both the student and the teacher to eliminate all kinds of noises, that can bloc k proper inputing of ideas. However, disaggreement between the two parties, can lead to this proce ss work in the opposite direction. Noises may get magnified if the viewpoints of the teacher and the student do not match. Stress is a very important factor in this inhibition process. The teacher is alw ays looking for a "willingness to learn" from the student's side. Similarly, the student always looks for a "willingness to teach" from the teacher's side. However, because of frequent int ellectual conflicts, both these expectations may receive a setback and the entire process may get aff ected. The personal rapot that must build up between a student and a teacher, is no longer present. Learning process involves acceptance of certain ideas. Then, as time goes on, th ese ideas gradually sink into the minds of the students, and the process terminates. If th e student has no confidence in the teacher (because of conflicts outside the realm of education), it will lead to unnecessary questioning and arbitrary doubts in the students' minds. As a result , the opposition to the learning process will rise. The second important aspect of learning is focussing. As discussed earlier, lack of confidence may encourage a student to look for other sources of information. Now, if the to pic is not as rigid as a subject like "Mathematics", then the new points of view that the stud ent might receive may deepen the hole of confidence further. As a result, the student will remain confused most of the time and no learning will take place. Such situations may not always arise from the student's side. The teacher may al so restrict his teachings because of the lack of confidence in his student. Ego clashes might ta ke place because

of which the teacher might deviate from his responsibility. The process of learn ing is smooth if there is no friction between the outputing of data from the teacher and the i nputing from the student. If the ideas in the first place are not "good enough", then the essence of learning is totally defeated. So far we have discussed situations where there are serious personal problems be cause of disagreement between the student and the teacher. However, it may happen that th is conflict is not very serious so as to affect the personal lives of both the parties. Conflic ts in teachings of say a topic in "Morality" may infact prove beneficial for a student of this s ubject. It may lead a student to investigate more into this field, and think of newer and bette r ideas. Because of the conflicts, the student may get into a frame of mind where he will try to "defeat" his teacher and a mature teacher may infact encourage this aspect. Thus we conclude, that although disagreement may cause stress, this stress may p rove to be beneficial or detrimental to the learning process. However, if this stress start s affecting the personal lives of the student or the teacher, then the process that will hencefo rth go on, cannot be termed as teaching. Learning can go on only if there is a willingness to work on the ideas from the side of the student and there is a willingness to give ideas from the side o f the teacher. In this way, both the "Injecting" and the "Focussing" aspects of learning are satis fied. This may or may not take place depending on the situations we have discussed above.