What does it mean to be educated? We often associate education with being institutionalized. We consider a person educated based on grades, diplomas, or titles. While we often put emphasis on these things in gauging other people's-and even our own-aptitude, we know through observation that they alone don't make a person completely cultivated. There are more, often veiled, aspects that merits our consideration.
You might wonder what this aspects are, as I also did when it became a subject of my contemplation these past weeks. Searching for answers myself, I came upon a book that helped me. A memoir released in 2018 that I felt was relevant to the questions I was posing. Aptly named, it is Educated by Tara Westover.
This book is a memoir of Tara Westover's peculiar journey towards being "educated." She is from rural Idaho, United States. Following a long, challenging-but rewarding-period of education and unusual upbringing, she was able to finish a doctor's degree in History at Cambridge.
It was Westover's intention to tell her atypical life story to the world, and it was enlightening as much as it was perplexing. The book was well-received and became an instant bestseller. It gained positive reviews from publications such as the New York Times, the Economist, and Vogue. It also garnered awards and nominations from the Los Angeles Times book prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award and National book critics awards among many others.
Book's synopsis
Tara Westover was born in rural Idaho, United States to Mormon survivalist parents. She had six other siblings. Due to her parents unusual beliefs, particularly his father's, they lived in seclusion in the wilderness. They made little contact with other people except those who live nearby, most of whom are survivalist themselves. Her father believed in radical ideologies and in the existence of groups working towards a new world order, often mentioning the Illuminati. This beliefs made him skeptical of society and the government. As a result, Tara and her siblings were never enrolled in schools, never been taken to hospitals, and were never even applied birth certificates. Her father firmly believes that the present society is run by evil leaders who wants to take over the world.
Tara's family made a living through their father's scrapyard. She and her siblings spent their childhood helping their father in this yard, often getting injured, and compromising the time they should have spent enjoying their childhood. Her mother, a midwife and a herbalist, home-schooled them through outdated textbooks. Their education and upbringing however was mostly influenced by their father's attitude and ideologies.
In her still sheltered teenage years, Tara suffered verbal and psychological abuse from one of her brothers. An event which was depicted through humiliating accounts of incidents Tara experienced in their home. Her family's dysfunction became evident through repression and denial. Tara, for once, can't bring herself to be intimate with a man she liked because she was conditioned not to be a "whore," a nickname her abusive brother often calls her. Her parents denied that there's something wrong with her abusive brother even when Tara opened up to them about her suffering.
One of her other brothers, by sheer self-study, was able to enter a college institution at a town nearby, much to the disapproval of their parents. Tara was not as driven as this older brother to gain an "education" but was encouraged by him that she should also experience being in a classroom, and learn about the world.
Like her brother, she willed herself to learn algebra, trigonometry, and grammar, and took the ACT (American college testing) test to gain college admission. Astoundingly, she was able to pass the test and from then on, she decided to take her own path towards education.
Tara was 17 when she first entered a classroom. She had no study background on any subject except from the isolated homeschooling that her mother gave her. She did not know much about America's history-knew only a handful of presidents-and was generally clueless about other countries. In one of her first classes, she bewildered everyone by asking, at her age, what is the Holocaust.
Remarkably, she was able to do well in her college years. So much so that she was able to gain scholarship for higher education at Trinity college, an affiliate college of the university of Cambridge. She would then went on to complete her studies and ultimately attain a PhD in Intellectual history.
Her path towards what she considered "education" was ridden with ridicule, opposition, and bitterness from her parents. At present, she makes no-to little contact with her family, except a few brothers. She was labeled many things by her parents: delusional, ungrateful-and possessed by Satan. She became estranged to her family but believes that it is for the better. She loves her family, but she wanted and chose to be educated on her own terms.
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A Sheltered Life
One of the book's main theme is seclusion. Tara's story is a revelation on how social and educational isolation spurs bigotry, fear, and condemnation of other ways of looking at the world. This was evident on her father's behaviors, which, as Tara later realized, could be signs of psychological disorder. Being raised in such an environment can be damaging to people especially to children who rely on their parents to make sense of their realities. I consider that her brother's hostile attitude towards her have some psychological correlation to the secluded environment that they grew up in. It was remarkable for me that Tara did not develop any crippling psychological disorders of her own, aside from mild instances of repression.
I maintain that each of us have an innate desire to know about the world. And I would say that Tara exemplified this same sentiment by choosing to get educated even if her upbringing brought her up not to do so. Through education, she has come to realize how much her family was estranged from a bigger world that she knew nothing about, a world that she will remain ignorant if she kept herself in her sheltered family.
Loyalty or honesty
Her choice to attend university made her face a difficult question. How much is she willing to break faith with her family to get educated? It is hard to let go of things or people that shaped us, especially our family whom had been with us since childhood. Tara's dilemma forced her to confront the truth of her upbringing. She was pulled from both sides: one towards opening up to the honest truths of the world. The other, a tug of loyalty towards the family that raised her.
In the face of a difficult question like this, it is the better choice to stay with what's true. Tara chose to continue her education even if it meant betraying the distorted values that was imbedded in her since childhood. She was able to do this mainly because she chose to see for herself a bigger picture, one that is accurate, diverse, and closer to truth unlike the worldview that was portrayed to her by her parents. Through education she was able to gain independence of mind.
Education and independence
As embodied by Tara, I realized that the more inclusive meaning of being educated is the capacity to look at the world from different perspectives and having a mature mind that can think independently. Education is a process of becoming. It is not solely measured through one's achievements but more essentially, through one's character and attitude towards other people, things, and ideas, especially those that are foreign or are in complete opposition with one's perspective.
Tara's story is one that we can bring to mind whenever we resist to expand ourselves through education. For it is through education that we can become independent agents of our lives, grounded in wholeness and informed by an accurate representation of the world that we all inhibit.
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Conclusion
Tara's story provides a new and distinct way of how we can define what it means to be educated. It proves that learning can start at any age and that nothing can hinder a curious mind. Personally, it helped me take more responsibility for my own education. It helped me look beyond the surface of what we commonly consider educational attainments, into an essence that, as I understand now, makes a person truly learned and informed about the stature of the world.
This memoir will be read and will continue to inspire more people in the years to come.
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