Taking Your Education for Granted? Read Educated.

I tend to be a little behind in reading best-selling books.  If there's a hot, new book that everyone is reading, you can bet that I haven't read it yet.  I'm usually a good year behind.  My friend, Meagan Stone, recommended this one to me, and I am so glad I didn't wait to read it.

Educated is the memoir of Tara Westover of Buck's Peak, Idaho.  Raised by a father whose Mormonism was so extreme that even members of his own church thought he was crazy (and, he likely did suffer from undiagnosed bipolar disorder).  Tara had never seen a doctor because her father believed they were in league with the Illuminati or gone to school because, according to her dad, that was the government's way of brainwashing their kids.  They largely supported themselves through shed construction and scrapping from a junkyard, and some of the injuries she describes are astounding, especially when you consider they were treated with herbs and oils.  She didn't even have a birth certificate for the first nine years of her life, and no one can say with certainty when her birthday actually is.

As she described her childhood, I kept imagining a sort of 19th-century scene.  Then, she describes her family's preparation for Y2K and their response to 9/11.  I realized she is younger than I am.  How is it possible that this was happening in the 21st century?

While the story is gripping in every way, from her brother's abuse to her fear of a boy touching her hand for the fear she would get pregnant, the part that sticks with me is how quickly she learned to learn once she had the opportunity.

One of her brothers left home and, while attending BYU, encouraged her to do the same.  While she had been taught to read nd write, she had no education in math or in conveying ideas through writing.  In order to apply to BYU, she had to get at least a 27 on the ACT, so she got books and taught herself.  It took two only two attempts.  I know people who have been in school with excellent teachers their entire childhoods that required two attempts. 

It's not like once she was enrolled, she was prepared to do well in classes.  A friend had to tell her that she could actually read the art history textbook, and when she didn't know the word "holocaust," she upset her classmates by asking about it.  Nevertheless, this 32-year-old learned how to learn very quickly, found some people who believed in her abilities, and she now holds a Master's degree and a doctorate from Cambridge and was a visiting fellow at Harvard. 

There are two things that strike me most when reflecting on this book.

1.  Resilience is deeply embedded in children.  Tara witnessed and was subjected to manipulation, abuse, injury, and a myriad of traumatic events.  Had they been a bit more on the grid, she would likely have been removed from her family at a young age.  Yet, she overcame these challenges with teaching and encouragement from a few important people.  We talk about this in camp training every year.  We are working with foster children, but when they receive unconditional love for a week, we see remarkable growth because God has placed resilience in the human heart.  No one has suffered so much that they cannot thrive when finally placed in the right conditions with the right encouragement.

2.  Don't take your education for granted.  As I said earlier, as I read this book, I kept feeling like it was from another era or a less developed country.  You may have a had a bad teacher now and then, but you had teachers.  You may not have gotten the study skills training you should have gotten at your school, but you probably knew you could read the textbook before you got to college.  You may not know as much math as your peers, but you didn't start from scratch at the age of 16 by teaching yourself.  Whether you attended public school, private school, or had real homeschooling, be grateful for it rather than complaining that someone made you work more than you wanted to.