Anyone else reading the memoir “Educated” by Tara Westover? I highly recommend it. Tara recounts her completely unconventional upbringing in rural Idaho, raised by survivalist parents (and probably a mentally ill father). She is non-schooled (as opposed to home schooled) before teaching herself enough to take the ACT and gain admission to Brigham Young Univ. She goes on to earn a PhD at Cambridge. (I’m not giving anything away…it’s all in the reviews.) Her chaotic childhood was similar to Jeannette Walls’ experiences in “The Glass Castle”.
We as parents do so much to prepare our children for college and their future. Tara was resilient enough to accomplish it all on her own. Very inspiring (although filled with many very disturbing experiences).
Yes! Just recently finished this, and also heard Tara interviewed on NPR (by Terry Gross, I think). What an impressive young woman! I can’t help but wonder how her life will unfold. I hope she continues to pursue her academic interests in addition to nonacademic writing.
It does conjure up memories of The Glass Castle. And, perhaps coincidentally (or maybe I’ve got a theme going, now that I think of it), I’m listening to the audiobook of Pat Conroy’s The Death of Santini. Just heartbreaking. One never truly escapes the clutches of a horrible parent, but the few who can transcend such an upbringing have a deep well of stories to draw upon.
I watched her interview on C-Span’s BookTV and was impressed at how together she sounded. She struck a great balance between showing some love for her family and owning that she couldn’t maintain a healthy relationship with most of them based on the abuse she suffered from one of her brothers. The book is on my to read list, but sometimes an hour with BookTV lets me “cheat” and know the book to a small degree when I don’t have time to read it right now. The video of the interview is posted on the C-Span site if anyone else is interested.
I agree with you @jollymama about the deep well for authors like Pat Conroy, my favorite of all time.
One of my book clubs read it last month. We had a great discussion about it.
She was lucky to have so many people in her life who saw her potential and who helped her reach goals she didn’t even know existed. Sometimes they helped her in spite of herself.
I read Educated a couple of months ago and can also highly recommend it. She is such and incredible inspiration and my heart really goes out to her because she is still so damaged. The obstacles she’s had to overcome really dwarf the ones we usually hear about on cc.
I did some googling after I finished the book and her mother still has a real presence online, selling her “products”. It’s stunning how many people buy into what that company does.
My book club just read it. Everyone was quite enthusiastic. Some tidbits that came out at our meeting: Tara’s family (the part she has little or nothing to do with) is still so deeply in denial that when the book was published they hired an attorney to put out a statement taking issue with her memories;Tara’s mother’s thriving online business (selling her crazy concoctions) has 30 employees; there are a number of interesting interviews with Tara on Youtube.
I don’t want to get too spoilerish, but PM me if you’d like to hear a theory about Tara’s brother that was raised by one of our more insightful members.
Bumping this up because I just finished the book. Wow, I am amazed at how she overcame such dysfunction.
Since this is CC, I have to ask - she managed to be successful in college and beyond and did not have one SAT prep class, no varsity letters, no extracurriculars, no AP classes, no field trips, no Model UN, etc. Obviously she is an outlier, but does her story at all indicate that our kids’ potential is innate in them and should be brought out organically, rather than setting out a path for them that includes all of the above?
She obviously had a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity that was a gift. How can we encourage that in all our students, instead of putting them on a treadmill of activities from an early age. I guess what I am saying is, I am struck at how much she learned so quickly and her growing up experience was in such contrast to all of our kids. How much influence do we really have in how a child turns out?
^^ Oh, you mean how many of us grew up? And were still successful at building lives?
Extracurriculars have their time and place. But so does the freedom to learn organically (as you say) through exploration, play, reading, etc. Somewhere along the line “we” decided kids needed lots of “things” to make them smarter. From objects, toys, classes, prep, activities and on and on.
I think the key is who is driving the car? The parent deciding that a child needs A/B/C/D/E or a child being given the opportunity to choose if they have interest and drive towards A/B/C… or just A.
Parents set the stage/environment but should not fill in all the blanks. Our role is to determine parameters - limiting scheduled time, screen time, making outdoor time,etc. Kids should then have the freedom to explore their world to develop interests. We provide the blank slate - be that the family room with no tv on or the backyard to explore - kids take it from there. (with interpersonal interaction with those around them of course)
