Coleman Rohde

5/16/21

Educated Essay

Education in the United States is highly mechanical. The teachers, students, and staff

have become moving parts in a well oiled machine. To be educated seems now a trivial question.

However, a hundred or so years ago, under classical education, that was not the case. Everyone’s

education was highly specialized in a world of unstandardized private education that produced

some of the greatest revolutionary and scientific thinkers like George Washington, Benjamin

Franklin, Isaac Newton, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. It is inarguable that these people were

educated but there was no standardized curriculum to prove that they were. Tara Westover, an

accomplished writer, also serves to challenge the mechanization of education. Raised in the

backcountry of Idaho, in an off-the-grid home, she was prevented from seeking public education

by her father who insisted that it was against god. In spite of her circumstances Tara was able to

achieve a competitive score on the ACT which allowed her to attend the prestigious Brigham

Young University. Tara’s experience serves to show that education is not mechanical in its

definition but rather a result of learned determination, perseverance, and resistance.