Educated, a memoir by Tara Westover

I have just finished reading a tremendous novel, Educated, A Memoir, written by Tara Westover. It is her story of her life as a child in Idaho raised in a Mormon family that was what we would call old-fashioned: living off the land, using healers rather than doctors, home-schooling, and honoring thy father and thy mother. Tara separates herself from her family through her thirst for knowledge, something else to fill her mind with thoughts and ideals and needs for something more than what her family of origin could provide. It isn't easy reading as far as the content is concerned, but it's easy to become involved in Westover's story as she tells it.

There is a sentence that jumped off the page for me and is now part of me: "We are all of us more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell." Westover is basically self-taught, learning through interactions with other people and her vast experience with reading, and she rose above the stories other people told about her to become the vibrant, self-confident professional woman that she is today. "Dysfunctional" is too easy a word to describe her life, and heroic is not a strong enough word to describe her victory over her past.

One snapshot from the text captures her struggle for self-identity: "But if Dad was trying to keep his children from being overly interested in school and books--from being seduced by the Illuminati, like Tyler had been--he would have done better to turn his attention to Richard (a brother). … When Dad saw me with one of those books, he'd try to get me away from them. … Perhaps he thought if he could just distract me for a few years, the danger would pass."

If I were still teaching, this is a book I would recommend for students to read so they have an idea about how precious education is for each individual. We all don't need the same education, but we all need to be educated in some form or another. I would target as my reading audience tenth or eleventh grade females who are whirling through the uncertainties of life and trying to grasp onto something meaningful and important. We all struggle in our own ways, but sometimes learning of another person's struggle can help us cope with our own.

I posted this entry on my Facebook page, but thought I'd add it to my blog as someone who needs to read this book may stumble across it surfing the 'net.