Never before a book has evoked so many emotions, so many thoughts and so much learning. I have always believed that certain things happen to me at the right time. At this moment, as I experience and share about our 'life without school' on various platforms and I attend to many calls - providing support to those who are considering 'opting out of school', this book has come as a reminder - that life can be complex for many, relationships can be complex and emotions can be complex too. The book reminds me to value this very complexity in my life and untangle my emotions and bring in more simplicity in my relationship with my spouse, children, my mom, my extended family and friends.
At one point when I was reading I thought, "Life without school, isn't for everybody" and I felt that Tara Westover would have been better off at school than in the company of eccentric and abusive family members. I wondered why Tara bore all the wrath meted to her by her fathers authoritarianism and why did she yet want to keep connected to her mother who backed out and sided her father. More so I wondered why she didn't report the her abusive brother to the police and kept forgiving him each time he apologized. After a lot of thought I came up with this explanation - when your family is everything to you, you tend to forgive, forget, ignore or turn yourself blind. Your love supersedes the experiences and the trauma of those experiences.
On another note I thought, "Tara Westover was able to achieve all that she did because of her resilience, her ability to uncomplicate the complex relationship she shared with her family members and most importantly because her mind wasn't cluttered by the expectations and the norms around good and bad, right and wrong usually inflicted in the schooling atmosphere. She did not know about comparison or competition and simply focused on bettering her own levels. She could also put in her thoughts, reasoning and analysis in the papers she wrote without worrying about what her fellow mates had written, bringing in a certain originality in her work which was much appreciated and led to her gaining scholarships to Cambridge and Harvard. These thoughts gave me the much needed confidence in our 'unschooling journey'.
Also, we as a family haven't experienced anything violent and our journey is based on the belief in natural learning and freedom and autonomy in decision making. Our life is based on mutual respect toward each other devoid of attempts at control. We believe in living joyfully and enjoying our learning journey. This is where my family differs from Tara Westover's family. Her father was an authoritarian. It was his word that mattered. He was also bipolar, had his ups and downs and a scary temper. Her mother was submissive and often let her husband rule over her thoughts, perspectives and decisions. They believed and lived with many gender stereotypes and biases especially about clothing and a woman's role. One of Tara's older brother had a violent strain in him. It was he --- who brought in abuse and violence in their family.
I admired how Tara grew resilient and strong as she grew. I admired her love for her family - in spite of them treating her badly. I admire her courage to move out of her home and pursue higher education and also challenge her own belief systems. I admire how she transformed and started listening to her own voice. I admire how she never let her past ruin her present (though she does mention a time when she had almost given up her PhD studies and had depression and panic attacks). I admire that she remained true to her love for her family. I admire her for the hope she never let die - the hope that someday her family will be sorted out and will change for the better. I am not yet sure whether she reconciled with her family - maybe not. What I gather is - non reconciling doesn't mean that she stopped loving them. What I received from the book is the 'love' she had for them - the love is evident through out the book.
She did stop believing every word that her father said - and started believing in herself and her ability to reason and learn about different perspectives. What touched me most was her mental breakdown. I wish she had written more about how she came out of it as I felt those chapters were rushed...or maybe I need to re-listen to them to understand them better.
This book has also been my first successful attempt at an audio book. So far every audio book I tried put me to sleep. So this time I listened to this book while doing my dot art. I am not sure whether the dot art helped me focus on listening or whether it was gripping story and a well narrated audio that kept me hooked to this book. As I immersed in the story and I imagined myself taking the role of Tara and I went through each of her experiences - happy, joyful, sad, traumatic, numbing, fearful...all of them. I could actually feel what she felt and her need to keep going back to her family.
I picked up this book as my daughter is named Tara and we unschool her too. The similarity stops at that right now. However I do see streaks of Tara Westover in my daughter - her curiosity, her strength, her focus and willingness to work hard to get what she wants. But my Tara is different - she doesn't take any nonsense from her brothers or any glitches on my part to control her life.
So who is this Tara Westover?
Tara Westover, the author of the book, 'Educated - A memoir' born in the year 1986, in an survivalist Mormon family who lived an isolated life in the mountains of Idaho. The family didn't believe in schooling or using any medical facility. Her father has a scrap yard and her mother is a midwife and a self learnt alternate medicine practitioner. She is a well known healer. Tara has five brothers and one sister. All of them did not attend school. Tara and two of her brothers did opt for mainstream higher education with each earning a PhD in their respective fields. Her second oldest brother, was /is violent and has mood swings which became worse after a head injury. Her sister found academic learning tough and chose to remain closely associated with the family in spite of facing violent attacks of her brother.
So do I recommend this book to others?
Yes, this is a must read. I am sure every reader, listener will have different takeaways and will have different thoughts about the book. Her book has been criticized by many. I believe that Tara shared her story, from her angle and view-point. Her family members could have different experiences and could have understood certain things differently. Or probably different behaviour was meted to them.
My ending thoughts
This story is from our current era. Tara is about eleven years younger than me. Her oldest sibling probably is of my age. She was at Harvard at around the same time my sister was studying there. Just to know that while I was growing up...there was a family living in an isolated life in the mountains of Idaho, living a life so different from mine is a very intimidating thought. The thought that there are many such Tara's around me - some who grew up or are growing up to be strong and resilient and some who are yet struggling with the impact of their past... makes me feel unsettled. Maybe such are the ways of life...
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