We often take for granted the ubiquitous things that we assume everyone has. Access to clean drinking water, access to food, and access to a warm place to sleep are things we are aware of that not everyone has access to. It’s why there are so many charities and social programs to try and narrow that gap between those who have it and those who do not. However, one thing that is chronically overlooked is how in our country, every single child has a right to free and accessible public education. How amazing is it that we live in a world where everyone gets the right to learn to read and write, to learn history and math and science? We are so used to this right that the quality of public education is constantly under scrutiny, yet rarely do we hear from people who had the entire system bypass them completely. The memoir Educated by Tara Westover tells the story of such a woman and how she worked against all odds for the right to be educated.
This is not some old historical story — the woman who wrote it is currently 37 years old. What she writes about, what she lived through, happened in the 90s and early 2000s. Westover was born and raised in Idaho to an extreme survivalist Mormon family who, due to their beliefs, did not allow her to attend public school. Instead, she was “homeschooled,” which is the most generous descriptor possible for her experience. In practice, her mother quickly lost interest in teaching Westover much of anything, and she was left to do manual labor with her brothers to help support the family. How often as kids did we hate getting up each morning to go to school? How often did that little girl wake up wishing for a bright yellow school bus to come pick her up?
Our education system is something we take for granted nearly every day. We get to go to school and learn how to read and write and how to do addition and subtraction. But school is how we learn about the world, what our history is, and how we got here. Education serves as our means to try and give everyone the same level of knowledge about the world, to even the playing field, as much as we possibly can. School is where we learn how to make friends, treat each other with kindness and respect, how to stand up and advocate for ourselves. We learn grit, we learn about our nation’s tragedies along with its accolades, we learn how to fail, we learn about the atom, we learn determination, we learn how to read Shakespeare.
The education system is not perfect. But reading Educated made me realize that without it, our world becomes unimaginably small. Public education paved the way for countless brilliant minds to not be left behind in the dust of their pasts but gave them the ability to brighten countless futures. We can always be better, but it is just as important to be grateful for what we have experienced. The school was both a miserable whirlpool of grueling lessons and cruel firsts and the best thing to ever happen to me. I think that statement stands true for most of us.
