Lessons without limit: Free choice learning!

Hi all:

Forgot to post this last week. However, it will be relevant to the paper Laura and I will summarize in class this week

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Falk, J.H., & Dierking, L.D. (2002). Lessons without limit: How free-choice learning is transforming America. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

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This book focuses on Free Choice Learning (FTL) or more accurately life-long learning. According to the authors, FTL is about

possessing the skills, commitment and capacity to learn across an entire lifetime…it goes without saying that there is a growing awareness of the importance of non-school sources of information and education that extend learning before and after the years of schooling” (pp. 2, 5).

FTL, in other words, is about our ability (as learners) to control what we learn, how, when, how fast, and under what circumstances. FTL stresses that knowledge is not just functional in nature (i.e., so we can get a college degree or a job), but also experiential (we learn simply because it enriches our lives…and because it’s fun).

According to the authors, FTL is the “new wave” of education because it embraces four realities:

(1) Learning is contextual – what we learn depends on our experiences, attitudes, feelings, motivations, and perceived social norms (just like all behaviors to a large extent).

(2) Learning is transactional – we control what we learn as well as why, when and how.

(3) Learning is experiential – we learn best when we can directly experience what we are studying. Francis Bacon would be proud!

(4) Learning is like a diamond: it’s forever - humans are hardwired to seek out and acquire new knowledge, whether it involves our immediate surroundings as infants or more abstract concepts in our adolescent/adult years.


Clarke’s take - The book gives a very eloquent overview of the importance – if not the necessity – of free choice learning in our society. I agree that we are innately programmed to learn and that we spend our entire lives acquiring knowledge, not necessarily because we have to but because we want to do so. However, after reading the book, I am left with one overriding thought: duh! I find it exceedingly obvious that learning is a life-long endeavor that neither begins nor ends in the classroom. Moreover, the authors’ disdain for formalized education is troubling. I would argue that rather than stifling individual creativity, the classroom (broadly defined) gives us the resources and motivation with which to continue future, informal learning.

The authors also treat FTL as a novel concept or as something they only recently discovered. Finally, I found their framework for encouraging FTL rather vague and uninspiring – in effect, riddled with platitudes.

** One final thought: If FTL is contextual, how can we develop any kind of uniform standard for how to go about doing it? **