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Educated, Brooklyn-Style
I just finished the book, Educated, by Tara Westover. For those who have not read this compelling memoir, it shares the author’s experiences growing up in a family in rural Idaho, following a more extremist version of Mormonism that involves fear of the government, of the medical establishment, and of public education indoctrinating children.
Despite a childhood immersed in conspiracy theories, a paucity of books other than the bible, enduring illness and injury with herbs and prayers, and overtly misogynistic messaging and treatment, Ms. Westover went on to Cambridge and Harvard, earning a PhD in Intellectual History.
She defied all expectations in spite of her upbringing. In spite of parents who made every effort to solidify walls around a daughter who would not be contained, who was driven to learn and experience the world on her own terms. She is a rare exception.
This led me to reflect on my beginnings, so vastly different from Ms. Westover’s.
My early years in a two bedroom apartment with my parents and two siblings in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn was an education in itself, an education that normalized differences.
My first best friend of that time, Tina, lived a floor above and when my mother would get the early morning call to substitute teach she would run me up there to be watched by…
