Learning in Places: The Informal Education Reader

During an age of educational standardization and scripted teaching, Learning in Places is a refreshing reminder that learning happens everywhere that humans interact. Co-editors, Zvi Bekerman, Nicholas C. Burbules, and Diana SilbermanKeller remind readers that learning goes beyond local, state, and national curriculums, and takes place in spaces outside of schools: homes, workplaces, libraries, museums, popular culture media, street corners, malls, and the Internet. Learning is what humans do in relationship to one another and their environment. The contributing authors provide analysis of qualitative data collection from a variety of contexts, including dialogue transcriptions from conversations between family members in public museums and home contexts. In a chapter titled, “Beyond the Curriculum: Fostering Associational Life in Schools,” Mark Smith introduces readers to the nature and potential of informal education. Informal education is not preplanned and happens in the spaces where human activities occur. Central to the learning process are conversation and communication. Dialogue is a theme throughout the book chapters. In “Dialogic Inquiry in Classroom and Museum: Actions, Tools, and Talk,” Doris Ash and Gordon Wells ground their work in Vygotsky’s theory concerning learning activities within the Zone of Proximal Development. Through two vignettes, one in a museum and one in a classroom, it is easy to see the free-flowing dialogue within a family at the museum that leads to rich learning opportunities and the difficulty of fostering true dialogue in a classroom, where learning activities are planed for 25 to 30 students in a traditional classroom setting. Teachers