ABSTRACT
Th e decades of the 1960s and 1970s were the seed-bed years in which experiential education germinated. At that time, much formal education consisted of a process in which a teacher lectured to students who memorized what was said and then regurgitated it on a test. Th e civil rights movement and the anti-war protests of this period launched an era in which that traditional authoritarian education model was questioned, and much of this debate focused on higher education. Educational critics and reformists like Paul Goodman (1960), James Coleman (1961), John Holt (1964), Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner (1969), and Ivan Illich (1971), questioned the relevance of an education that did not deal directly with the life issues facing students, and the value of memorizing material that was usually not used and forgotten in a short time. Th ese issues were not always raised politely; sometimes they were discussed as part of student sit-ins, demonstrations, and campus take-overs. Not knowing how to deal with protesting students who sat in administrative offi ces, took over campus buildings, and even burned down a building or two, college administrators and faculty began a frantic search for a solution, and new “experimental” educational programs were born. Although some were little more than attempts to co-opt and pacify the protesters, others were legitimate attempts to re-think teaching and learning strategies.
