Learning at the Back Door: Reflections on Non-Traditional Learning in the Lifespan

Wedemeyer stresses 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. There is a powerful subculture of independent learners who are responsible for much of the real progress that has been made in most areas on endeavor. This book attempts to explain this kind of learning and relate 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.

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.