Relationship of language, Power and Thinking with Knowledge

Knowledge is a sum of individual experiences. It is an important aspect of human life that human acquired in his life. Knowledge is a piece of information which comes from data and is applied in practical life. It is personal and comes to an individual with experience. Knowledge can be shared, but can be perceived differently. Knowledge is an acquisition that person gets through tools like power, identity and thinking. Knowledge is acquired by the students through the teaching-learning process. There is a clear and important relationship between language, power, identity and thinking. It can be easily understood in the following manner.

v  Language with knowledge: language is a process of communicating thoughts. It is a process in which a person is able to interact with society because man is a social being. Through language, people can share their feelings, ideas, and thoughts with the people and can learn from other's ideas and thoughts. As said by John Dewey, school is a miniature society. A school is a place where students interact with each other with the help of language and acquire new knowledge, which comes from student’s present and past experiences to form the base to develop an understanding of many concepts.  Therefore, we can say that a person through a language interacts, learns and develops the concept by communicating in verbal, non-verbal, formal or informal which ultimately adds to his experience and therefore helps in acquiring new knowledge.

v  Power with knowledge: Power is the ability of a person to control someone other's behaviour. It is an ability to influence others behaviour. Different types of powers like mental/cognitive, physical, social, economic power etc. can be achieved from different fields. Communication is a strong tool that helps in gaining power. Knowledge is the tool which gives power to the students and that is acquired through communication. Moreover, a teacher is also powerful in many ways. He has the power to impart knowledge in such a way that a person's ability to learn for developing critical thinking becomes easy.

v  Thinking with knowledge: thinking is an important aspect of an individual's life. To construct new knowledge critical thinking is essential for students. Education plays a vital role in the overall development of the student’s personality which comprises his physical, mental, social, cultural development etc. Therefore, mental development only takes place when a student starts his own thinking. The curriculum in the present education system is designed in such a way that boosts the thinking process. It helps in the interaction between the teachers and students. Students ask questions for the information to satisfy their thirst for knowledge. Therefore, knowledge does not come by only in parting information or sharing knowledge, it comes when a student develops his own understanding with the help of his critical thinking.

We can conclude that knowledge is related to language, power and thinking. Language is used in communication to develop new knowledge. Knowledge is also a powerful tool to impress and convince. Thinking helps the students, to construct new knowledge by experiencing within his environment. Therefore proper knowledge would be acquired by using these, which is an important aim of education.