Learn Like A Pirate

Anna    Community, Resources     bach, book, books, buccaneer, buccaneer-scholar, buccaneering, james, Learning, marcus, passion, passionate learning, pirate, review, scholar, self-education

This is a discussion of Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success, a book by James Marcus Bach.

“A buccaneer-scholar is anyone whose love of learning is not muzzled or shackled by any institution or authority; whose mind is driven to wander and find its own place in the world.” -p.9, hardcover edition

James Bach dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to pursue his own education. His book is a first person account of his learning methods and experiences.  His excitement over learning is contagious, and he presents his ideas in a way that’s easy to understand and appreciate. The buccaneer analogy of learning is followed throughout the book, illustrating concepts in a very vivid way.

Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar is a great exploration of purposeful self-education that will set you on the right path to appreciate a self-directed approach to learning. It’s a book I recommend to anyone interested in learning.

The Misconception of Self-Motivation

Many reviews of Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar argue one point: James is an unusually self-motivated learner, which is why he’s been successful. They argue that others (especially the average high school dropout)  might not be self-motivated enough to learn.

My argument is that those reviewers are missing the point. read more

Unschoolers On Youtube

Anna    Community     blogs, dayna martin, idzie, james marcus bach, radio free school, unschoolers, video, videos, youtube

I’ve gathered some videos of unschoolers for all of you to see. Seeing someone speak as passionately as you would about something can be very inspiring! Maybe you’ll even see yourself on the list.

Enjoy! read more

Leonardo da Vinci the Unschooler

Anna    Community, General     da vinci, famous autodidacts, famous unschoolers, leonardo da vinci, polymath, quotations, quotes, renaissance man

A polymath is a person, with superior intelligence, whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. … [The term] Renaissance Man … [is] used to describe a person who is well educated or who excels in a wide variety of subjects or fields. – Wikipedia

Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance man, in both terms of the word. Born in 1452, he was born straight into the Renaissance polymath ideal. Leonardo was an architect, painter, sculptor, musician, botanist, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, scientist, writer and inventor. He fit into the polymath ideal very well.

Leonardo is renowned for his amazing intelligence, and is the painter of what could arguably be called the most famous painting in the world: the Mona Lisa.

What you may not know about him is that he was self-educated. Leonardo received little to no formal training outside of the arts (untrained artists were unheard of during the Renaissance). His work was ridiculed by his scholarly peers, and in his notebooks Leonardo even states, “I know that many will call this useless work.”

Today, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In his notebooks, Leonardo speaks several times about his perspective as an autodidact. I’d like to share a couple quotes from him. read more

Self-Ed 101: 5 Reasons Why You Should Unschool

Anna    Basics     101, 5, beginner, five, how to start, reasons, self-ed 101, self-education, should I unschool, starting out, unschooling, why, why unschool

It’s hard to say when exactly I chose unschooling. Looking back, it seems like unschooling always was my choice. I just didn’t know it. Most of my learning happened outside of school. Even when I was in elementary school I understood that. After a few years I started to question why I even needed to be in school at all.

Like a lot of families, I came to choose unschooling through a gradual process. In my first years at school, I enjoyed it. I loved the opportunity to learn. When the system started working against me, I started to question it. Why couldn’t I learn something the higher grades were learning? Why didn’t we read more than one chapter, if everyone was interested and concentrated on it? I didn’t know the world arbitrary then, but that’s what it felt like: a bunch of rules and regulations with no real connection to learning.

Then I discovered homeschooling. That made more sense to me. I already learned more at home than I did at school. A few years after my discovery of homeschooling, I discovered unschooling. That’s when I realized unschooling was what I had wanted all along.

So here I am.

There are a huge number of reasons to unschool. It’s likely there are as many reasons as there are unschoolers. My biggest reasons were not wanting to be stuck with my grade level subject matter. I wanted more.

Among everyone’s reasons to unschool, there are a few things we all agree on: read more

Come Contribute to the Resource List!

Anna    Resources     new page, resource, resource list, Resources

Like I discussed here, I think the internet is the best single resource for self-education. It’s a quick, easy source of information on any subject you care to learn about.

I have a long list of trusted sites and resources I’d like to share with all of you. I’ll be gathering all of them on the resources page. There’s a never ending amount of great sites out there, and I’ll be adding new links whenever I come across something new.

There’s a couple things I’m keeping in mind when adding these resources. I want:
- Honest facts and opinions. Mistakes are fine, but misleading people isn’t.
- Free information. Donations, ads, and subscription choices are fine. Some information has to be available for free.

Resources will be added continuously, so check back often. What are your favorite resources online?