Independent Scholar Movement II: James Bach

A book I highly recommend if you're looking to truly be a scholar without the limitations of instituions, archaic guidelines, and structures that tend to take you away, rather than lead you toward your stated goals. James Bach has written an excellent book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, demonstrating the skills he's picked up and developed without the degree, leading to a very successful career in the highly competitive software industry. While he also emphasizes, as I would, that the purpose of the independent scholar movement, is for each individual to find what's right for him/her in achieving their goals, as the "one size fits all" standard does not work, he has some general guidelines (called "SACKED SCOWS), that I think would be a starting point for any budding scholar to answer their questions in their own terms:

"The Elements of My Self-Education Method
1. Scouting Obsessively. I discover the sources and tools I will need. It's more than half of the fun for me. I browse bookstores, skim books, surf the Web, or troll the dictionary. i try things and abandon them. I do all this to have deep resources when I need to learn important stuff fast.
2. Authentic Problems engage my mind. An authentic problem is one that I personally care about, not one that someone else thinks I should care about.

3. Cognitive Savvy means working with the rhythms of my mind. Thinking operates according to patterns and principles that I use to sail my mind, rather than driving or towing it. Researchers call it "metacognition."

4. Knowledge Attracts Knowledge, the more I know, the easier I learn. New knowledge conncets with old, inspiring questions that reach toward yet more to know.

5. Experimentation makes learning vivid and direct. To experiement is to get close to it, question it, play with it, poke at it, and learn from what happens next.

6. Disposable Time lets me try new things. Disposable time is time that I can afford to waste. A great deal of my best work I can trace to doodles, games, watching television, and other so-called wastes of time.

7. Stories are how I make sense of things. A story is a meaningful arrangement of ideas. Through composing, editing, sharing, or challenging stories, I advance my grasp of the world.

8. Contrasting Ideas lead to better ideas. This means challenging my beliefs with opposing ideas. It means asking probing questions, developing skeptical and critical habits to avoid being fooled or ambushed.

9. Other Minds exercise my thinking and applaud my exploits. Even though I'm responsible for my own ideas, I find it fun and useful to listen and respond to other thinkers. I get ideas from other people, then reinvent them for myself.

10. Words and Pictures make a home for my thoughts. Beneath the level of stories, there are words, pictures, and symbols that embody meaning. I discover and deploy powerful words, take notes, fiddle with diagrams.

11. Systems Thinking helps me tame complexity. Systems thinking is the art of analyzing complex structures to find simple ones beneath. As a systems thinker, I learn faster because I see connections between what I'm learning and what I already know." pp. 34-35

As Mr. Bach states "(d)ifferent buccaneers learn differently. That's find. This is how I do it." That's an important point that each of us would do well to remember, whether as teachers or students, as veterans or rookies in the pursuit of learning for learning's sake, we must find our own path, while seeking guidance to our particular quest. Only then will we truly gather the treasures worthy of those who are called "Buccaneer Scholars."