Educated: Week 4 Discussion

Recorder:
Group members: Joshua Mecham, Morgan Pursglove, Teya Snowder, Emma Cecil, Jordan Neeley

1. There are some claims about homeschool versus public school made in this Facebook post in August of 2020
as students were set to return to school near the beginning of the COVID pandemic. This post on medium.com
explores Danelishen’s ideas in a lengthier post. Read the post below and discuss: What do you think? Agree or
disagree? Why? Valid arguments? Invalid? Share anything that comes to mind. Relate your answers to your
own experience and/or the experiences shared in Educated.

Discussion Notes:

- She’s arguing for something that parts of the

audience don’t agree with. For example she thinks
that the government is trying to take over the world.
- She’s got the same ideas as Tara Westover’s father
- I agree that developing your own ideas and opinions
are important but we disagree that homeschooling is
the most effective way to achieve that.
- She doesn’t explain why or how the government is
brainwashing students in school.
- The government isn’t trying to brainwash kids but
the way that the education system is set up isn’t a
way that actively pushes students to think for
themselves and learn about their own personal way
of learning or retaining that knowledge but instead is
set up for to test intelligence through testing.
- Morgan who was homeschooled says “When I was
homeschooled I spent most of my time staring at a
computer watching YouTube and Netflix”
- Even though we disagree with her answer, Tara
Westover’s ACT score is more evidence that
homeschoolers get a better
education.
- When you go to a public school you are able to hear other people's opinions, but her kids and other
homeschooled children only get to hear their parents opinions, which is denying them knowledge. They aren't
learning to think for themselves, but are only learning the opinions of others and adopting them as their own.
- Public school provides a more affordable option for parents who want to educate their kids but don’t have a
lot of money
- In homeschooling the main person teaching is the parent and the student doesn’t get any other opportunity
to interact with other students and learn other opinions

2. James Baldwin, American writer and activist, delivered A Talk to Teachers in October 1963 to New York City
teachers. It was later published that December in the popular weekly magazine The Saturday Review. Within
the text, Baldwin argues that responsible Americans must use education to address injustice in society. Read
the excerpt below and discuss: What do you think? Agree or disagree? Why? Valid arguments? Invalid? Share
anything that comes to mind. Relate your answers to your own experience and/or the experiences shared in
Educated.

A Talk to Teachers by James Baldwin

“Since I am talking to schoolteachers and I am not a teacher myself, and in some ways am fairly easily
intimidated, I beg you to let me leave that and go back to what I think to be the entire purpose of
education in the first place. It would seem to me that when a child is born, if I’m the child’s parent, it is
my obligation and my high duty to civilize that child. Man is a social animal. He cannot exist without a
society. A society, in turn, depends on certain things which everyone within that society takes for
granted. Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education
occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society. Thus, for example,
the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of
the Third Reich, became barbarians. The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to
become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of
education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own
decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in
heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way
he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What
societies really, ideally, want is a citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If a society
succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as
responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it—at no matter what risk. This is the
only hope society has. This is the only way societies change,” (para. 2)

In summary, Baldwin writes, “I began by saying that one of the paradoxes of education was that
precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your
society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person. And on
the basis of the evidence—the moral and political evidence—one is compelled to say that this is a
backward society,” (para. 19).

Discussion Notes:

- In Educated, Tara is “homeschooled” for most of her life and it is only when she goes to school that actually
starts to think for herself and develop her own ideas and personality
- After Tara learns about the civil right movement she is able to realize that her brother calling her the n word
is incredibly racist
- I think that the writer's response is valid and has reasoning because after studying the Hitler Youth in history,
I’ve seen how education and constant pressure can turn innocent kids into violent radicals.
- Her dad, who had had no education, had read a book that was saying that the Holocaust had been caused by
the Jews, and that they had paid Hitler and the Nazis to cause the Holocaust and that they had done it to
themselves.
- Tara also did not know what the Holocaust was because her parents either did not choose to teach it to her
because of their beliefs, which shows how education can be warped by whoever is teaching it
-It wasn’t until Tara was educated especially on history that she started questioning aspects of her life and
realizing that the way she had grown up was wrong and many of the things she learned were inaccurate.
- This article relates to the facebook post by Danelishen because they both directly connect education to
politics.