Tara Westover's Educated: An Analysis

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Homeschooling is a non-traditional method of education. It allows parents to have a more direct approach to their child’s education by teaching them at home, as opposed to a traditional school environment. In Tara Westover’s memoir Educated, Tara discusses her experience with homeschooling in a fundamentalist Mormon household, and how her education was impacted by it. Tara’s story demonstrates the effects of homeschooling on children, and how it affects them through adulthood. There are many different reasons why parents choose to homeschool their kids. The reasons that parents have for homeschooling their child has a direct impact on the child’s education. In Tara’s case, she is homeschooled due to her extremely religious family’s distrust …show more content…

Homeschooled children often face negative stereotypes and prejudices. In Educated, Tara faces many self-doubts perpetuated by those around her. Negative stereotypes also have an effect on the people who choose to homeschool their children. The stereotypes surrounding homeschooling can lead to a propagation of self-doubt. “Suddenly that worth felt conditional, like it could be taken or squandered. It was not inherent; it was bestowed. What was of worth was not me, but the veneer of constraints and observances that obscured me.”(Westover 129) The propagation of self doubt is prevalent throughout the memoir. Tara feels as though her worth is connected to her ability to perform at the same level as her peers. The stereotypes surrounding homeschooling can also lead others to doubt the abilities of homeschooled children. “No comma, no period, no adjective or adverb was beneath his interest. He made no distinction between grammar and content, between form and substance. A poorly written sentence was a poorly conceived idea and in his view, the grammatical logic was as much in need of correction. ‘Tell me,’ he would say,’Why have you placed this

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