Educating: A Memoir

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According to Tara’s account, both car accidents occurred while returning home from Arizona visits to Grandma. At Val’s insistence, they leave late in the day, causing drowsiness while driving. In the first incident. Val was at the wheel. The second time, one of his sons was at the wheel.

James Davison Hunter – The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil (2000) Educating for the Anthropocene: Schooling and Activism in the Face of Slow Violence . Peter Sutoris. MIT Press. 2022.A fascinating read thank you! I come rather from Tara’s perspective after having escaped a cult 3 years ago and having written my own memoir, after losing everything including my family. I am happy to admit that when one is in that position it is very easy to give feelings over facts – because after all feelings are still valid.

But those rigid thoughts and actions often created a chasm with extended family members. “Interactions with family,” LaRee admits, “sometimes caused trouble between Val and me and led to our children being exposed to slanderous stories about their father.”I will finish the book with all the information you have provided in mind but I wanted to thank you for taking the time to do exactly what I was hoping to do for myself with much less access to information.

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis – Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life (1976) Thank you for sharing. Did you know I have a free Facebook book club? You might enjoy it. Look us up: The Book Club Ladies. To give you some perspective of the setting where both books take place and why I’m very much interested in them, you need to know that the Westovers are from Clifton, Idaho (population 301 in 2018). I grew up in the nearby community of Preston, Idaho (population 5,501 in 2018). The distance is about 12.5 miles, a 16-minute drive in southeastern Idaho.Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow As an adult with an abusive childhood I can understand the inability to exactly remember a traumatic moment in the past yet others are crystal clear. You are living with such a heightened sense of terror, constantly on guard. It’s exhausting and your perspective is usually tunnel vision. Studies have proven this level of trauma affects your memory. I would’ve have been less likely to believe Tara’s account if she was 100% about every detail and find her more believable due to her attempts at clarification. The book Educated is riveting. I was stunned at all the young Tara endured but it’s even more frightening that she continues to endure. She is the battered child, still searching for the love and acceptance from two very dysfunctional parents. To say they were and are mentally ill doesn’t do justice. They hurt all of their children and all seem to retain their zombie like existence. Mormonism is not a cult. It’s a beautiful religion. But the Westover’s, themselves, are a cult. They fit the description in absolute. Other than to feel sorry for their mental conditions, I find little sympathy for them or their cause. They have destroyed lives. They are accountable for what they have done.

Is it all true? That’s what I really wanted to know when I agreed to read LaRee’s memoir. Like many of you, I read Tara’s memoir, Educated,a couple of years ago and re-read it right after reading LaRee’s book–in preparation for this review. I applaud you for writing such review. While reading Educated somehow I felt Tara’s pain and got angry at times so much that I had to keep the book down. I couldn’t believe the ignorance and abuse. May be it was painful more since it was described in detail and worded so well. I don’t think I could read Educating after reading Tara’s book. Your review is quite insightful and gives the perspective. Thank you and very well done.Charles: Westover's first "boyfriend". Clouded by her father's teachings, Westover is never able to get intimate with Charles. She ends up distancing herself from him when Shawn's abuse gets worse and he tries to tell her that Shawn's behavior wasn't normal. They remain friends to this day. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Hardcover) Tony Westover: Westover's oldest brother and first child of their parents. He is noted only as working with their father at the scrapyard. He is 12 years older than Tara. I am not a member of the LDS and did not see the book as presenting all of you folks as a “bunch of kooks”. I saw this as a story about a family. It would make as much sense to think it makes all Idahoans look like a “bunch of kooks”. Tara presented the town folks and the people at BYU as more normal.