Educated: A Journey of Self-Discovery Through Education
Tara Westover's memoir, Educated, is a powerful and moving story of a young woman's journey from a survivalist upbringing in rural Idaho to the halls of Cambridge and Harvard. Born into a family distrustful of the government, schools, and hospitals, Westover did not enter a classroom until the age of 17. Educated is a raw, emotional, and at times, heartbreaking account of Tara Westover’s life. It's a memoir of resiliency, courage, and hope.
A Childhood Shaped by Survivalism and Distrust
Westover's parents, Gene and Faye (pseudonyms), raised their seven children in the mountains of Idaho with a strong emphasis on self-sufficiency and a deep distrust of mainstream society. Gene, her father, was a survivalist who viewed hospitals, schools, and the government as evil. This worldview stemmed from a belief that they should never rely on the government, a dogma entrenched after an incident where neighbors were attacked by the government. This paranoia led to the family stockpiling food and weapons and preparing for the end of days.
The children did not have birth certificates or medical records, and they were not enrolled in school. Legally, Tara did not exist. Her mother, Faye, worked as an unlicensed midwife and herbal healer, providing the family's primary source of medical care. Tara and her siblings did not have proper schooling or medical care. When Faye was in a serious accident during the move to Idaho, she didn't receive medical treatment, and she had chronic headaches after that. The Westovers preferred not to get medical treatment; Faye was a herbalist and had her own way of treating ailments. She also used other alternative medicine treatments like testing chakras and massaging pressure points.
Tara and her brothers Luke and Richard worked in the junkyard without gloves or helmets, resulting in numerous injuries over the years. When Tara gets a piece of metal stuck in her leg, her mother treats it with flowers, and it cements Tara’s decision to go to school like her brother.
The Spark of Curiosity and the Desire for Education
Despite her father's opposition to formal education, Tara's older brother, Tyler, decided to go to college. Tyler was a bookish kid who didn’t fit in well with the family. He studied in his spare time and decided to go to college. He stepped into a void. His conviction for education came from an unknown place. His decision planted a seed of curiosity in Tara's mind, sparking a desire for a future beyond her immediate circumstances.
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After her brother Tyler went to school, the seed of an educated future was planted in Tara’s head. She started dreaming about a future outside of her immediate circumstances. She started imagining the classrooms where Tyler was spending his days. He encouraged Tara to take the ACT and go to college, and Tara started studying math in her free time. Tyler helps to tutor her, too.
Tara also recalls an incident where her brother Luke gets burned, though he family’s recollection of what happened is all different. It's one of many incidences where there's discrepancies among her family about what happened growing up.
Tara decided she needed to go, too. She takes the ACT and is accepted into BYU. Her father is firmly against it and continues to be volatile and dangerous.
Overcoming Obstacles and Embracing the Unknown
At the age of 17, Tara left home to attend Brigham Young University (BYU). She found the adjustment to academic life challenging, as she lacked the formal education and knowledge that her peers possessed. At BYU, Tara settles into her new, strange life. She experiences culture shock as well as difficulties in school since she is far behind the other students going in. When classes start, she’s confronted by things all the other kids seem to know, but she is unfamiliar with. She doesn’t know what “essay form” is and other kids think she’s making a tasteless joke when she asks what the “Holocaust” is. She’s also struggling to keep up in school, has trouble with basics like spelling and fails her first exam.
She didn’t even know that she could ask for help from professors. But she persevered, driven by a thirst for knowledge and a determination to create her own identity.
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Tara's journey was not without its struggles. She faced financial difficulties, academic pressures, and the emotional toll of separating herself from her family's beliefs. She was an incurious student that semester. Curiosity is a luxury reserved for the financially secure: her mind was absorbed with more immediate concerns, such as the exact balance in her bank account, who she owed how much, and whether there was anything in her room she could sell for ten or twenty dollars. When you have a baseline of financial slack, you could finally transcend the focus on money that consumes your mind if you don’t have money.
Her emerging independence also caused a threatening dynamic between her, Gene, and Shawn. Whenever Tara returned to Buck's Peak, her father manipulated her into working for him, while Shawn continued to physically and emotionally abuse her.
The Power of Education and the Price of Self-Discovery
Education helped Tara take control of her own mind and thoughts. As she progressed in her studies, Tara began to question the absolute perspectives of her family and to develop her own critical thinking skills. She realized that the domineering and absolute perspectives of her family were not the only ones. They weren’t the truth.
She had come to believe that the ability to evaluate many ideas, many histories, many points of view, was at the heart of what it means to self-create. If I yielded now, I would lose more than an argument. I would lose custody of my own mind. This was the price I was being asked to pay, I understood that now.
Tara's experiences at Cambridge broadened her horizons even further, and she was encouraged to consider graduate studies. Tara still felt isolated from her peers, and ashamed of her origins. She hid most of her past even from her friends and the men she occasionally dated.
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Confronting the Past and Reconciling with the Present
One of the most challenging aspects of Tara's journey was confronting the abuse she suffered at the hands of her brother Shawn. Shawn had a dangerousness to him, and he can be mean, controlling, physically and emotionally abusive and violent. She grappled with the differences between her and her family. In her teenage years, Tara made friends with and dated a guy named Charles. He was educated in public school and did not share the skepticism of the government that Tara’s family had.
When Tara returned home for the summer, she starts hanging out with a boy from town, Charles, and starts to see her previous life as being a little backwards. Gene and Shawn think she’s become "uppity" and call her names. Tara gets a headache, Charles gives her an ibuprofen, and Tara is shocked to experience medicine that actually works (as opposed to the home remedies she's accustomed to). She's also stressed from financial and academic pressures, and her friends have to help her with her personal hygiene. When Charles visits her home sees the hostile, abusive environment, he feels in over his head and breaks things off with her.
The church Bishop at school is supportive of Tara and tries to help her with her. During an introductory psychology course, Tara realizes that Gene likely has bipolar disorder. She starts learns the truth of the event (Ruby Ridge incident) from child. It was a drug raid, but Gene had believed the government attacked that family for their beliefs.
When she finally stood up against Shawn’s abusiveness and calls him and her parents out for allowing his behavior to continue, it led to conflict with her family. Tara became more and more ostracized within her family, eventually culminating in Shawn learning that she had been telling their parents about the abuse she suffered.
Her parents did not support or trust someone whose worldview diverged from their own. This sends Westover into a downward spiral; losing her family equates with losing her identity and her home. She nearly fails her PhD and is deeply depressed, but she finds hope when her older brother, Tyler, chooses to support her.
Ultimately, Tara's pursuit of education led to estrangement from her parents and some of her siblings. She realized her family would never trust her claims and became estranged from most of them, with the exception of Tyler. The estrangement from her family prompted grief and depression for Tara, but she was finally able to heal, and successfully completed her PhD.
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