In our previous reading, Secrets of Buccaneer Scholar by James Marcus Bach, we identified Bach’s main concern of education being more important than school. He believes that institutional learning settings where we take multiple test is not the way of learning, but rather restricting us. Education is far more than school and can be obtained anywhere we go.

Rene Descartes’s Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and seeking Truth in the Sciences supports Bach’s theory/lens. Rene Descartes attended one of the finest schools in Europe. He was a good student and believed “that by their help a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life might be acquired, I was ardently desirous of instruction” (Descartes). Rene Descartes believed what he learned in school would help in life later on. However after Descartes finished his studies, he was in doubt. He stated, “But as soon as I had finished the entire course of study, at the close of which it is customary to be admitted into the order of the learned, I completely changed my opinion” (Descartes). He had problems he couldn’t solve with the material he learned in school. Descartes change of mind about school supports Bach’s theory because Bach believed that school is not an effective way of educating yourself. After, Descartes completely abandoned his studies and “resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself, or of the great book of the world” (Descartes).  He spent his time traveling and “collecting varied experience, in proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me, and, above all, in making such reflection on the matter of my experience as to secure my improvement” (Descartes). Descartes was building onto his knowledge even when he was not in school. Descartes’s adventure proves Bach’s idea of being able to educate yourself everywhere you go.

John Locke’s An Essay concerning Human Understandings also supports Bach’s theory of education. In Locke’s essay, he says we have no innate principles in mind. Innate means being in the mind when we were born. John Locke answers the question, “Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge?” with a one word answer: experience. “From experience: in that all our knowledge is founded” says Locke. He provides us with an example, “that if a child were kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster or a pine-apple has of those particular relishes” (Locke). As Bach said, children should not be trapped in school and should go out to the world to educate themselves. With experience comes knowledge and education.

In Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar, James Bach is explicit in his views that school is not as significant and mandatory as education (Bach 3). He differentiates school from education and encourages “at risk” kids to look at him (Bach 2) not just as a high school dropout, but as a high school dropout who, contrary to belief, is successful and works at the well known company: Apple (Bach 1). To him, school is merely a setting structured for inflexible tests and restrictions to passions and interests (Bach).

Through this lens of Bach’s, it is evident that Rene Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason, and Seeking Truth in the Sciences” both supports and challenges Bach’s belief that school doesn’t designate our future. In the beginning of the paper, Descartes states that he was “ardently desirous of instruction” (Descartes 2) and therefore, studied and relied on letters as his primary source for “a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life” (Descartes 2). A few lines further into the paper; however, Descartes realized that through studying at “one of the most celebrated schools” (Descartes 2), he only stumbled across “doubts and errors” (Descartes 3), resulting in his change in opinion on relying on study to gain knowledge (Descartes 3). Here, it is clear that Descartes supported Bach’s argument.

Although Descartes realized that his studying in school no longer advanced him in learning (Descartes 2), he still continued his studies on the remaining brink of hope he had in school that the “languages taught in… [the studies of the schools were] necessary to the understanding of the writings of the ancients” (Descartes 3), challenging Bach’s argument. Descartes still had hope in the effect of his studies towards his learning but Bach only found enrolling in school any longer to be a waste of his time (Bach 2).

Bach also states in his book that “[k]nowledge is part of my education” (Bach) which, according to John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,” is not innate but acquired since it is something you are continuously building on (Locke 2). Knowledge that brings improvement is what Bach considers education (Bach) and Locke states that it is through experience that “all our knowledge is founded, and from there it ultimately derives itself” (Locke 4). The experience and traveling of Descartes’ after he “abandoned the study of letters” (Descartes 4) are all part of his “knowledge,” according to both Bach and Locke, especially since it has allowed him to “secure [his] improvement” (Descartes 5).