I read for almost two hours last night finishing Educated by Tara Westover. Wow, what a powerful memoir. The author describes her life growing up at the foothills of the Idaho mountains. Her parents are survivalists: trying to live away from society out of fear of “the government”. Mental illness and religion play a role in Westover's story, but through her writing she was able to mine down to a deeper understanding of her upbringing isolated from the world.
Throughout her childhood and as a young adult, Westover kept journals that documented her both tragic and inspiring experiences. Her written reflections served as artifacts of her life which she came back to while writing this memoir. The author concedes that her version of the truth could only be a close proximation of what actually happened, even though she witnessed first hand much of what she described.
We are all more complicated than the roles we are assigned in stories. Nothing has revealed that truth to me more than writing this memoir - trying to pin down the people I love on paper, to capture the whole meaning of them in a few words, which is of course impossible. This is the best I can do: to tell that other story next to the one I remember.
I am sure that Westover only used a fraction of her written reflections as she crafted her memoir. She culled what was essential to tell her story. When we have our students write in school, how much of it is personal in nature? Should we teach students how to journal, as well as how to take these seemingly disparate pieces to find trends and patterns in our writing and ideas? How might we use journaling as a way to examine our own lives? There are lessons presented graciously here by Westover that we could all consider.