Traditional pedagogy has considered education as the process of socialization and the transmission of social heritage left by the previous generations to the younger ones. These educational goals have enormous importance. But the essence of education is to help each individual to become a unique person, to draw out what is hidden within. Education as a process of personality development is “a bridge between potentiality and the actuality”. A perennial paradox exists between socialization and personalization. The fear of surviving, as well as many political and ideological pressures, has not let education realize its essential function entirely. Therefore, what is called ‘education’ has often turned into its opposite. This paradox has not been solved up to now. Recently, the holistic approach has opened a completely new view to reality. From this point of view, education is observed as the interaction and communication between two or among more persons in a human relationship. In the specific space of a human relationship, interaction and communication could come under the impact of conscious as well as unconscious influences. If the unconscious and unintentional influences or activities have greater power than the conscious and intentional ones in education, the possibility of conflict, contradiction or confusion is real, irrespective of our awareness of it. But as we become more aware, we better solve the paradoxes. I have tried to elaborate several paradoxes connected with the human relationship, communication, interaction, as well as with some ordinary truths about teaching and learning.

Keywords: paradox, teaching, learning