Educating: A Memoir

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I know from my own childhood experiences that events were viewed in a wide variety of “facts” depending on the viewer and their perspective. At one point, Val (pseudonym Gene in the book) refused to renew his driver’s license and insure their vehicles. Her deep processing of all that she endured including the intimidation, bullying, gaslighting, physical abuse, and manipulation is what led her to fight for her eventual triumphant escape in to a new life. As was noted earlier, the correct name of the religion is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. LaRee may have made homeopathic compounds as well – we don’t see a clear distinction – but my point is that the terms are not interchangeable, any more than are “quilts” and “blankets,” or corn liquor and corn syrup.

Where ESE did take place, despite a lack of funding and teacher training, it was mostly concerned with environmental aesthetics and individualised problem-solving, such as anti-littering projects, rather than offering wider systemic and political critiques. Drawing on the work of Rob Nixon, the author makes fascinating links to show how the bureaucratisation and technocratisation of formal education lends itself to the state-sponsored social reproduction of ‘slow violence’. It appears that LaRee is also on the crazy train too, but not to the extent that Val is, but I wonder what she was like as a 20 year old girl, and why she wanted to choose the life she choose? 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 make no apology for including the book I wrote with Kathryn Ecclestone, The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education because it is an influential critical work that has produced considerable controversy.At the end of the memoir, Westover is in touch with only a few family members and accepts that she needs to be away from the mountain. Her difficult journey and her deep faith in the face of adversity, has yielded within her blessings of comtemplation, scholarship, and knowledge of history, culture and human nature. 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.

At times, Sutoris’s comments on local cultural norms (such as teaching) seemed over-critical, with teachers and students rarely granted expertise in their local realities. Throughout Educating, LaRee tells of spiritual promptings, priesthood blessings, temple attendance, answers to prayer, heavenly visitations, and faithful church attendance and gospel study.There’s access to one of the nation’s top children’s hospitals as well as a world renowned cancer center. In her self-published memoir, LaRee and her husband, Val, make a point of telling us they are different, and they’re not afraid to be different. These mutual friends have expressed concern that the memoir isn’t fully truthful and have asked me to take a look at both sides of the story. We’re just taking it in, without judgement, and with a tiny grain of salt because we both know (we are in our 60’s) that memories are … shaded? I do feel Educated is more accurate, but her family disputes it aggressively, and there are variations of some of the incidents Tara mentions.