The field of education has largely ignored the concept of the dialectic, except in the Socratic teaching method, and even there bipolar meaning or reasoning has not been recognized. Mainstream educational psychology bases its assumptions about human reasoning and learning on current demonstrative concepts of information processing and levels of processing. Three current strategies based on these assumptions are serial listing of facts or topics; cause/effect relationships; and problem/solution methods. Research has shown that recall of prose passages is significantly greater with dialectical (or opposing points of view) methods compared to the other three learning strategies. Individual differences in the use of dialectical methods represent production deficiencies rather than lack of capacity. If metacognition, the process of knowing about knowing, is to be a viable concept, it must transcend cognition, i.e., be "otherwise". Metacognitive capacities therefore imply dialetical rather than demonstrative reasoning. Studies of learning disabled students have shown that such students evidenced deficits in this metaknowledge (knowing when one knows) relative to regular students. Future research may show that the conceptualization problems of the learning disabled are related to the lack of use of dialectical reasoning. (MCF)