Biographies
by Tara Westover
Who do you become when you learn?
Tara Westover grew up on a mountain in Idaho and never went to school. Her father distrusted doctors, schools and the government. At 17 she walked into her first classroom, at university. Educated is about what learning gave her, and what it cost her with the family she loved.
Hear a sample · read by Laura
The Westovers were survivalists, stockpiling food and fuel for the end of the world. Tara had no birth certificate until she was nine. The children worked in their father's scrapyard, where bad injuries were common, and were usually treated at home with their mother's herbal remedies.
Her older brother Tyler left home for college and urged her to follow. With almost no schooling, she taught herself enough maths and grammar to pass the ACT, an American university entrance exam, and Brigham Young University let her in.
Westover checks her memories against her siblings' and admits where they differ, sometimes in footnotes. She shows how a family can settle on one version of the past, and how hard it is to trust your own account when the people you love tell a different one.
She went on to Cambridge, with a spell at Harvard, and earned a PhD in history. When she spoke up about a brother's violence towards her, her parents refused to accept it, and she became estranged from them. For Westover, learning to trust her own mind was the real education.
Buck's Peak
Tara grew up on an Idaho mountain with no school and no doctors, taught to fear the government.
Self-taught
She taught herself enough maths and grammar to pass the ACT and get into college at seventeen.
What was hidden
At college she didn't know what the Holocaust was. History showed her how much had been kept from her.
Her own memory
When her memories clashed with her family's, she learned to trust what she had seen herself.
The cost
Her studies took her to Cambridge and a PhD. They also cost her close ties with her parents and some siblings.
A story from the book
Early on at university, Tara raised her hand in a lecture and asked what the word Holocaust meant. The room went quiet. She hadn't meant it as a joke. She went and looked it up, and began to see how much of the world had been kept from her.
Hot take · true or myth?
Tara Westover never went to school as a child.
True. Her first time in a classroom was at Brigham Young University, aged 17. Any home schooling was patchy, and most days she worked in the scrapyard or helped her mother.
One thing to try
Write down a childhood memory you're sure of. Then ask someone who was there how they remember it. Compare the two versions, the way Westover does in her footnotes, and notice what each of you left out.
Knotd has the key ideas from 250+ non-fiction books, each in a few minutes, in plain words. Educated comes with a Hot Take round to make it stick.
Get the whole book on KnotdOpen in the appWho do you become when you learn? Tara Westover grew up on a mountain in Idaho and never went to school. Her father distrusted doctors, schools and the government. At 17 she walked into her first classroom, at university. Educated is about what learning gave her, and what it cost her with the family she loved.
Life on Buck's Peak; Teaching herself; Whose memory is right?; The price of seeing clearly.
Write down a childhood memory you're sure of. Then ask someone who was there how they remember it. Compare the two versions, the way Westover does in her footnotes, and notice what each of you left out.
Yes. Knotd has the key ideas from Educated in a few minutes, in plain words, plus a Hot Take round to test them. It's one of 250+ non-fiction books in the app.
