Group Names: Aryanna Hinckley, Louis Jensen
Educated: Week 5 Discussion
Please use a different color font for answers.
Roles
List any absent group members:
● Facilitator/Prioritizer: Louis Jensen
● Recorder: Aryanna Hinckley
● Connector: Saee Ashtaputre
● Questioner: Connor Walton
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?
In general you don’t need to leave behind the past to continue into the future, hse however is in a
special circumstance and needs to move past her past but still remember in a healthy way
It’s negatively affecting her so she needs to forget it
She is easily swayed by them so she needs to cut that out but not necessarily all communication
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?
Her first realization of danger, she has known that it was a possibility but this finally sets the realization
in
She realizes her parents aren’t fully there to help her after justifying some of the other actions. Fully
realizes that her parents won’t realize the problem “he brought the knife to protect her”.
Shows his insanity
Can’t keep making promises of change in her mind, he won’t come into her room and apologize
When her sister takes everything back after Tara leaves
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?
There were a lot of life changing moments and all of her “transformation” were through her learning
more about her world
At the beginning of her at college she refused to change and now she's accepting change and happy for
it
Transformation is different from betrayal and the last lines are different perspectives.
Connection with “Their eyes were watching god” and how she let her hair down and felt like a new
person.
She thought she was happy with her family until she got more education and realized how unhappy she
really was and how bad of a situation she was in
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?
Before believed family doesn’t have an exception for causing trauma onto you but now seeing that that
was how she was raised and family was all that she had.
Although she was aware of everything her family was doing it was hard to leave them because she loved
them and cared about them
The role education plays in one’s life and how liberating it is
Importance hardwork has in the role of education
Older siblings have a huge influence on siblings with how tyler was there for westover and influenced
her to go to college
Her aunt took her in as a daughter and she was more comfortable with them
Her grandmother was her first escape from her family as she would go over there for breakfast every
morning
5. How will Tara’s children be different from her nieces and nephews that will live in Idaho
Her nieces and nephews in Idaho are going to grow up in a very similar environment to Tara’s on
childhood
Tara will be more lenient and open minded so her kids will be able to avoid the trauma
Her children may receive trauma on the opposite side of the spectrum because she’s trying too hard to
make her children not end up like her.
How strict will Tara be with schooling?
Will she be more open and try to be the complete opposite of her parents?
How will aspects of parenthood affect her mentally
Summary:
The change between her in the first chapter and then her in the last is almost completely different but
she still has the trauma from her family.
Parents have more of an influence on how one’s behavior is or personality. When she’s fully away from
her family it’s evident the how bad her mentality is
Big aspect to take away is gratitude.
Goals would be completely different with current life then what her were
