ABOUT THIS BOOK

Is learning a natural ability that schools, colleges, and universities gradually stifle in individuals, replacing it with a learning dependency? Charles A. Wedemeyer stressed that learning is a natural, idiosyncratic, and continually renewable human trait and survival resource. It is not dependent upon teaching, schooling, or special environments, although—properly used—these resources enhance learning. Learning at the Back Door examines this kind of learning and relates it to schooling, suggesting ways in which all learning—whether traditional or non-traditional—can be encouraged and improved through new kinds of educational institutions and processes.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Charles A. Wedemeyer (1911–1999) was the William H. Lighty Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the University of Wisconsin–Extension. He spent more than forty years studying and developing non-traditional learning.

REVIEWS

“Wedemeyer’s account of the rise of university extension is lucid and his depictions of current and future controversies and concerns—accreditation, quality assurance, access, media integration, mandatory continuing education, and the evolution of a bonafide theory of lifespan learning—are clear and insightful.”—David C. Williams, Lifelong Learning/The Adult Years

“Charles Wedemeyer: scholar, author, teacher, administrator, internationalist, philosopher and creator of the ideas of open education and distance education. . . . [He was] a man who engineered a new educational system that would give opportunity for those whose only chance to learn was, ‘at the back door.’”—Michael Moore, The American Journal of Distance Education

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Figures and Illustrations

Acknowledgments

A Personal Note

Preface

An Introductory Note About Terminology

Part One
The Rise of Non-Traditional Learning

I
A New Urgency Regarding Learning

II
Learning at the Back Door

III
Teaching, Learning, Schooling, and Knowledge

Part Two
Non-Traditional Learning and Its Implications

IV
Distance and Independent Learning

V
Open Learning

VI
The Implications of Non-Traditional Learning

Part Three
Technology and Special Processes in Non-Traditional Learning Systems

VII
Technology and Non-Traditional Learning

VIII
Instructional Design in Non-Traditional Teaching and Learning Systems

IX
Building and Evaluating Non-Traditional Institutions or Programs

Part Four
Learning from a Lifespan Perspective: Its Ends in a Learning Society

X
Lifespan Learning

XI
Education for What?

XII
Back Door Learning in the Learning Society

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

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