Educated: Week 2 Discussion

Please use a different color font for answers.

Roles

List any absent group members: jamie

● Facilitator:
● Recorder: madison
● Prioritizer:
● Connector:
● Questioner: Charles

Notes

1. In the Author’s Note, Westover cautions that this memoir is not about Mormonism or “any form of
religious belief,” and that she rejects a negative or positive correlation between believing or not believing
and being kind or not being kind. But her father Gene’s faith is a sort of character in this book, informing
how he sees the world. What did you make of Chapter 8, “Tiny Harlots,” which moves from Gene’s
distrust of Westover’s dance recital uniform to his pride over her singing in church?

According to the background knowledge we have about Tara, we know she comes from a very strict
mormon religious background. She sees that the outfits worn at the dance recital were inappropriate
and disrespectful to the religion that she has a firm belief towards. Her father had been strict and
controlling towards her all her life, meaning he has always manipulated the way she thought, behavior,
way she dressed and in many other ways. Her father didn't want her to do anything that would have
society look at her in a way where her reputation might be looked down upon by society. Singing on the
other hand did not involve inappropriate dress and brought positive attention to her and her family.

2. In Chapter 9, the anticlimactic passing of “Y2K” confirms that Tara’s home is a place ruled by her
father’s grand—but false—delusions. Tara is beginning to grasp the fact that her father doesn’t know
everything, and that his ideas and beliefs may actually be harmful. Tara’s father seems “smaller” to
her—she can see the “childlike” disappointment in his features as he reckons with the fact that the world
has continued spinning on. Why do you think this realization is happening now? What is it that is making
Tara start to question those beliefs and values?

Because she is now introduced to all these new concepts and an entire new culture, Tara starts to
question what is actually normal and what is not. She will have some thoughts on whether what she
went through is normal or what she is seeing in the new society is normal. Now that she has been
introduced to new people and ideas she begins questioning her fathers authority and whether she
should follow what her father says or not. She starts to have the realization that she has the right to have
her opinion and could live her life without being under the manipulation and pressure from an
“authority” figure just because they are male or is simply because her father. She understands that there
are multiple ways to exist that are equally acceptable outside of their church. Staying away from boys is
not realistic or necessary for her to be a good person and retain her faith.

3. By Chapter 12, “Fish Eyes,” we are introduced to Shawn’s abuse of Westover and the other women in
his life, which recurs throughout the book. When Westover starts crying over one of these early
incidents, she writes that she is crying from the pain, not from Shawn hurting her, and that she sees
herself as “unbreakable.” She also writes that his abuse not affecting her “was its effect.” Why is this
insight important?
Abuse has been so normalized earlier in her childhood leading to her having this concept in mind that
seeing any type of abuse that occurs around her is “okay”or something that is seen as “normal”. Again,
because now she is exposed a lot more to the outside world she is starting to correlate the different
types of abusive behaviors and starting to link them to certain traits that she is seeing right now and in
the past. Since she is pretending the abuse doesn’t affect her she is internalizing it to maintain a positive
relationship with her brother. She doesn't want her brother to think he has power over her or for her to
be seen as weak.

4. In Chapter 14, Shawn has a major accident and gets a head injury. Tara explains that she has heard
conflicting accounts of Shawn's fall. At the end of the chapter, Tara talks about how she convinced herself
that "any cruelty on his part was entirely new. I can read my journals from his period and trace the
evolution--of a young girl rewriting her history. In the reality she constructed for herself nothing had
been wrong before her brother fell off that pallet" (131). Why do humans often "rewrite" their history?
Is it a function of memory? Does it have something to do with the brain? Why did Tara ultimately
"rewrite" it?
Tara does not really have someone that she is really close to, so she doesn’t have a close relationship
with someone to the extent where she is comfortable to open up about what she is going through or
what she has gone through in her past. Writing could be used as a coping mechanism to deal with what
she went through. And that is something that is seen throughout society and over time and it is a coping
mechanism that is still used today. People writing between themselves or “journaling” can help one
address themselves in certain situations without having the worry of what the other end will think,
because in the end of the day keeping it to herself isn't the healthiest or the best way to cope.

5. Although Educated seems very fictional and outdated, could the same concepts possibly occur in
modern society with parents homeschooling their children and teaching them that way?
Things similar to the concepts in Educated are still prevalent today. People are still being homeschooled
for different reasons such as religious beliefs and distrust of the government. Parents may want to
control the information that is being taught to their children so they can control how they act and or
view the world and their child’s path for the future. Parents in many cases also keep their children home
from school to help them work so the kids are being taught what their parents want them to know
rather than actually educating them to set them up for success.
These chapters show the values of the family and their beliefs. It shows how the dad often puts
his children in harm’s way for his own benefit and ego and doesn’t care about their personal
happiness. Tara is starting to learn to cope with her past trauma through multiple ways for
example writing, and sees that as her only escape to speak herself without fearing to be judged.
She starts fact checking everything as a way to know if what she knows and what has been told
is true. This book gives reasons to question authority because it may not have someone's best
interest in mind. She begins to believe and is starting to make it clear to herself that her father
does not have to manipulate her and she has the right of an opinion. She is starting to rethink
who she sees an “authority figure” in her life.