Group Names: Leslie Andrade, Taylor Simpson, Daniel Yi, Colin Carter

Educated: Week 5 Discussion

Please use a different color font for answers.
Roles
List any absent group members:
● Facilitator/Prioritizer: Daniel Yi
● Recorder: Leslie Andrade
● Connector: Colin Carter
● Questioner: Taylor Simpson

Notes
1. After Westover decides to continue her education, she finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile her
life on the mountain with her new life as a student of history. She writes that she had a “fractured
mind.” Does it seem to you that she must lose one life to gain another?
Her one life refuses to accept her other life. Her family refuses to see that she can be educated and still
be a part of the family. They are not accepting of her beliefs and her decisions. They shun her, and they
don’t treat her like they love her. Now she feels like she has two lives that are warring with each other,
so she chooses the one that doesn’t treat her badly. She chooses a path that is completely opposite of
what she grew up with. She is being exposed to new things, and her mind is like modern politics. As she
gains more education, she starts questioning all her memories, and they become more like viewing her
old life and new life, not as one collective life.
HER MIND IS LIKE MODERN POLITICS.
2. One of the most difficult scenes in the book comes near the end, when Westover realizes that Shawn
has killed his dog Diego after coming to her parents’ house with a knife in hand. How does this moment
change things for Westover?
This was the moment when she truly realizes that Shawn is a bad guy, and that this was the final straw
to completely cut him out of her life. It shows how unstable Shawn is, and how her family didn't do
anything about it, and continued to support Shawn and even try to justify his actions. The knife could
also represent how when a family member or friend goes against their values and order of things they
cut them out. It also shows how the family is so obsessed with keeping their ideals that they are willing
to break the family to do that.
3. One professor describes Westover as “Pygmalion,” while Westover herself at one point says she
believed she could “be remade, my mind recast” at her university. And in the end, she writes that she is
a “changed person” from the person she was as her father’s daughter, and from her 16-year-old self.
“You could call this selfhood many things,” she writes. “Transformation. Metamorphosis. Falsity.
Betrayal. I call it an education.” What do you make of these final lines?
Her education has helped her realize herself and overcome the negative beliefs of others. Her education
is learning about herself, and a new viewpoint on what happened in her life, and how her life with her
family was rife with trauma and abuse. She was able to see her life with more views and she changed
with that. Seeking knowledge about the self with education gave Tara a door to find more about herself
without the oppressive and narrowing views her household force-fed her throughout her life.
4. Looking back over the book, what did you learn about family and forgiveness and trauma? What did
you learn about education? What is your biggest take-away?
Family issues can be complicated. Forgiveness and family don’t often go hand-in-hand. Issues within
your family are more complicated because of the complex emotions and attachment. Just because they
are your family does not mean they are entitled for forgiveness. If there is to be forgiveness and family,
the family must be humble enough to recognize that there are other perspectives and you can be
wrong, even if you think you are right. Trauma within the family is the most devastating and hard to deal
with, because of that attachment and breach of trust. Never blindly believe what your family does, and
be open to new ideas, and be an individual. Education helps with individuality, as it gives you more of a
platform to view the world your own way with your own beliefs, and give you access to other points of
view. Education opens your mind.

5. At the end of the book Westover acknowledges possible inconsistencies with her story and her
family's story. Are Tara's memories of her childhood and adolescence reliable? Is the accuracy of a story
vital to the story's message?
Her story is more credible because she tries to get as many points of view as possible, and different
accounts. She also acknowledges conflicts of memory and events. I think that accuracy is vital to the
message she is trying to convey. These major things should be accurate in order to convey the message,
but the tiny details don’t need to be super accurate. If the events are exaggerated, then there is a
certain point when the message would become inaccurate if events are too exaggerated.

Summary:
During this section in the book, Tara realizes that she can’t reconcile with her family, and her
development as a person is outside of her family, and that she has to let them go. She found the only
family that still stayed with her was the other two siblings with Phds, which were the only ones who
understood enough to have the courage to stand up for her. Tara struggled becoming her own person as
she went into graduate school and outside BYU. When the family ties Tara was trying so desperately to
preserve Book was good.