Group Names: Sky Oaks,

Educated: Week 3 Discussion

Please use a different color font for answers.

Roles

List any absent group members:

● Facilitator/Prioritizer:
● Recorder: HARTPER
● Connector:
● Questioner: Braxton

Notes

1. By part two of “Educated,” Westover has decided she wants to get an education, has found a way to
take the ACT, and has left the mountain to go to college at BYU, despite her father’s objections. In her
first class at college, Westover recounts not knowing what the word “holocaust” means. Why is this
moment significant? (Chapter 17)
This moment is important because it displays the basic lack of education that she has, because
the holocaust was so important, and how she came off as disrespectful and foolish because she was
ignorant of the word’s meanings. She lacks the things the ACT didn’t teach such as a knowledge of
history. It’s the turning point for Tara because she had never heard of 6 million people being killed. It’s a
realization that she has lived in a separate realm, and now she’s in a new one.

2. Over the course of this book, the Westover family deals with a number of accidents: Westover’s
brother Tyler falling asleep and driving off the road, Westover’s brother Luke catching on fire, and later,
a very serious accident for their father. Early on, Westover writes that she thinks “all the decisions that
go into making a life — the choices people make, together and on their own, that combine to produce
any single event.” What do you think she meant by this? How does this insight apply to your own life?
The quote explains how the family's obsession with control, and them being driven by fear,
expose themselves to more accidents. Their faith in god, means a faith in being unprepared, then they
have an accident so they need more control, more faith in god, leading to even more accidents. It’s a
cycle that ends up in a snowball effect of pain and ignorance and servitude. The accident that Tyler gets
in is because of recklessness, including the one where it was snowing, the father trusts god to make him
so much profit and bounty that he is willing to risk his family because he trusts god. It’s the focus on the
result instead of who is hurt at the end. This leaves no one left to save at the end.

3. In chapter 18, Tara’s struggles run deeper than social anxiety. The way she has been raised is in direct
opposition to the way those around her have grown up, and the pressure to learn a whole new set of
social skills—and keep up with her studies and finances, as well—wears on her as the semester goes by.
Tara is learning that education is more than just book-learning. What might this mean? What important
things have you learned that were not from book-learning?
The struggles of the things she has not been familiarized with that are so foundational to
everyone else, such as washing her hands, gives her a massive learning curve. For us, the skills that take
time to learn are things like learning to collaborate and listen, these skills are not necessarily taught to
her. She is not used to the system of co-existence without a complete leader, her brain is still stuck in a
social binary. To develop, people expose multiple. She only has one way of thinking because she has not
been exposed to so much. She doesn’t know how to discuss it because in her life she has either obeyed
or seen someone command. She doesn’t know the gray area in between. The big reason why school is
so important is because it exposes kids to foreign concepts, it allows kids to make their own decisions
without their parents' biases. When you are not exposed to other ideas, you become afraid of other
ideas and become volatile and violent to people who have different ideals.

4. By Chapter 22, Westover writes that her life was often “narrated for me by others. Their voices were
forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
What is the significance of this realization? Do you identify at all with this?
It really defines that Tara can make her own decisions and she doesn’t need someone to control
her. She did make the decision to go to school, it is still similar to home because she is being told what
to do. But she also gets the opportunity to find the sense of control. It is interesting that she is never
taught to manage herself except with the ACT, dance and singing. She took those reigns. Being 17, Tara
being a kid, and her being able to find that voice and her own power, it must have been ground shaking.
Her father is not the all-knowing person; it removes his influence in a way and gives her the opportunity
to find that voice and her beliefs.

5. Why does Shawn’s behavior towards Tara change so frequently? Besides his traumatic head injuries,
what else could be in play?
After Shawnie hurts his head, he still goes back and forth on his opinions and how he sees Tara.
If he wants her to be his, he needs to protect her from his dad so she doesn’t die but also needs to own
her. He needs to bring her down so he can control her. We don't really know what brain injuries do
except that it can change a person’s personality. The protecting and villian that could be the result of the
brain imagery. OMG IT”S LIKE OJ SIMPSON!!!! He also was very sweet to Nicole then literally murdered
her. Brain tissue doesn’t recover, it’s so fragile.

Summary:
People hurt other people because they are scared: scared of women, scared of
different people. Brains are very volatile and people want to control other people. People
need to be exposed to different ideas so they don’t become violent towards things they do
not know. Understanding and empathy prevents violence. If people understood women
have rights over their own bodies, no one would be slut shamed or raped. If people
understood trans women, they wouldn’t be murdered.