Educated: Week 1 Discussion
Please use a different color font for answers.
Norms
Make a list of your group norms below.
Be respectful of others’ opinions
Do not cut off/interrupt others
HAVE FUN :)
Roles
List any absent group members:
● Facilitator: Louis Jensen
● Recorder: Aryanna Hinckley
● Prioritizer: Louis Jensen
● Connector: Connor Walton
● Questioner: Saee Ashtaputre
Notes
1. Educated starts with an epigraph from Virginia Woolf: “The past is beautiful because one never
realizes an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the
present, only the past.” What do you think Woolf meant by this? Why do you think Tara Westover chose
to begin her memoir this way?
Chose because the book is a memoir
It helped her reflect on the past
Something others could relate to
Transitions smoother into the book
The use of beautiful contradicts what we may think of the her situation
Tara blamed her past and that it impacted her negatively although she isn’t mad/upset about her past
The book is a form of therapy and the epigraph seems like it is as well
2. In the first pages of Educated, we are introduced to the mountain in rural Idaho where the Westover
family lives, described as a dark, beautiful, and commanding form in a “jagged little patch of Idaho.”
How does this setting inform the family’s experience?
Help shows their isolation
The description gives it a sense of a dangerous, powerful place
The nature is untouched and her memories are about it’s beauty as well as it’s dangers
Let’s us as the readers know that they have adapted to the environment and their resources to cleaning
options
How would someone who lives similarly would react to the book?
3. We are also introduced early in the book to the standoff at Ruby Ridge, a 1992 gunfight between FBI
agents and U.S. marshals and a heavily armed family on an isolated homestead. How does this incident
cast a shadow over the Westover parents and children, and the survivalism that characterizes their
upbringing?
Father’s exigence of going crazy and after the
Impact on Tara and how this is what she remembers
How the older siblings chose to leave as they got older and they had a different
Tara’s mother is pushed by the father to get a job although he doesn’t agree with women having a job
Preparing for the end of time and/or the government taking over them
4. In Chapter 5, Westover’s brother Tyler announces that he’s going to college, something none of her
other siblings have done. Why does Westover’s father, Gene, object to formalized education? How does
Tyler’s leaving have an impact on Westover?
Education and their establishments are connected to the illuminati
- Reminded of Louis’s grandfather
Gave Tara another option and let her be aware of that
Sparks her motivation to start thinking about going to school herself
Connects back to the beginning of the book where her grandmother asks her if she wants to go to school
herself.
This environment could cultivate the drastic difference between him and the father and wanting to defy
against the parents
5. In chapter 6, Tara starts helping her dad with his work after her brothers leave the house. On the first
day, she gets hit several times by objects thrown around by him, and even gets pierced by a piece of
metal. Based on the father’s actions and words, where do his priorities lie in regard to his own family?
Toxic masculinity power even if he isn’t aware of it- power craze, power hungry
Lack of self awareness- he is so focused on preparing that he pushes his family to the side
Prioritizes the future over his family
Summary
Through the book we, the readers, are able to understand the effect one’s environment has on who
they become. Westover’s brother Tyler defies their father by wanting to continue schooling at college,
and this event creates rifts within the younger side of the family.
We can also draw connections to Ready Player One as the environment of that movie also creates an
interesting environment, parasimilar, yet still very difference to that of our own.
