By Tara Westover
To be perfectly honest, Educated sat on my bookshelf for some time, far too long, as it turns out. Tara Westover’s memoir is one of the most impactful books I’ve read.
Here is a story of a young girl’s journey to adulthood on a most harrowing and treacherous path. The telling of her tale of isolation, abuse, poverty, religious extremism and educational neglect is downright painful to read. Her family imprisoned her young girl self, but despite her shame and confusion, she grew a spirit of resilience that is breathtakingly strong.
Tara Westover is a brilliant writer. There are so many lines I revisited over and over. In the details of her writing, her story becomes one we recognize. “I could tolerate any form of cruelty better than kindness. Praise was a poison to me; I choked on it. I wanted the professor to shout at me, wanted it so deeply I felt dizzy from the deprivation” (p.240). What I think, when I read these words, is that there are students, sitting in schools everywhere, having these same feelings coursing through their very beings. And, what about the chronically absent, tardy or sick? The statistics are sobering and readily available, the impacts transparent in the classroom. Offering a lifeline to these young people in our lives is an imperative for all of us in education. The care and nurturing that some of our students need will take patience and persistence, if we are to make any difference in their lives.
Educated is one for all of us who seek to free ourselves and others, from the limitations and traumas of our past. It is a call to do so for all of our students.