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Educated is even better than you’ve heard

Educated by Tara Westover

中文书名：《你当像鸟飞往你的山》

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to teach myself things. Whenever I don’t know a lot about something, I’ll read a textbook or watch an online course until I do.

I thought I was pretty good at teaching myself—until I read Tara Westover’s memoir Educated. Her ability to learn on her own blows mine right out of the water. I was thrilled to sit down with her recently to talk about the book.

Tara was raise in rural Idaho, she have a dad who believed doomsday (世界末日) was coming, and that the family should interact with the health and education systems as little as possible. As result, she didn’t step foot in a classroom until she was 17, and major medical crises went untreated (her mother suffered a brain injury in a car accident and never fully recovered).

Because Tara and her six siblings worked at their father’s junkyard from a young age, none of them received any kind of proper homeschooling (家庭教育). She had to teach herself algebra and trigonometry and self-studied for the ACT, which she did well enough on to gain admission to Brigham Young University. Eventually, she earned her doctorate in intellectual history from Cambridge University. and more importantly, she is a Gates Scholar.

Educated is an amazing story. Tara is never cruel, even when she’s writing about some of her father’s most fringe (边缘的)beliefs. Whatever their family, including her mom and dad ideas are, they pursue them.

Three of the seven siblings-including Tara-left home, and all three have eared Ph.D.s. Three doctorates in one family would be remarkable even for a more “conventional” household. Her dad taught the kids that they could teach themselves anything that gave them a degree of toughness and helped them persevere

He believed in conspiracy theories, and so she did, too. It wasn’t until she went to BYU that she realized there were other perspectives on things her dad had presented as fact. For example, she had never heard of the Holocaust until her art history professor mentioned it. She had to research the subject to form her own opinion that was separate from her dad’s.

When you meet her, you don’t have any impression of all the turmoil she’s gone through. She’s so articulate (清晰的，清楚表达的) about the traumas （创伤） of her childhood, including the physical abuse (虐待) she suffered at the hands of one brother. I was impressed by how she talks so candidly about how naïve she once was—most of us find it difficult to talk about our own ignorance (无知).

“I worry that education is becoming a stick that some people use to beat other people into submission or becoming something that people feel arrogant about,” she said. “I think education is really just a process of self-discovery—of developing a sense of self and what you think. I think of [it] as this great mechanism of connecting and equalizing.”

Tara’s process of self-discovery is beautifully captured in Educated.

Educated is one of the books in my bookbag, I think I will enjoy it.

作者访谈：教育不是狭义的职业培训，而在于自我创造

以下访谈内容引自豆瓣

以下内容整理自比尔·盖茨、奥普拉脱口秀以及《福布斯杂志》对作者塔拉·韦斯特弗的访谈。

比尔·盖茨与塔拉•韦斯特弗对谈

Q 你怎么看待原生家庭？

你可以爱一个人，但仍然选择和他说再见；你可以每天都想念一个人，但仍然庆幸他已不在你的生命中。

很长一段时间我都在想，正因为我爱我的家人，所以我是不是做了错误的决定？还有，因为我对家人深深的思念，让我多次陷入自我怀疑，心里有个声音不断重复：“因为我想他们了，所以我一定是做错了。”

我花了很长时间才醒悟过来，没错，爱很简单。最后一次见到爸爸时，他给了我一个僵硬的拥抱，然后对我说：“你知道吗，我很爱你。”我回答说：“我当然知道，这从来不是问题的所在。”我一直都知道爸爸很爱我，毋庸置疑，我并不觉得爸爸那么做是因为他不爱我。

但**当我们试图以爱的名义控制和改变他人，这种爱就变味了。**这并非爱的真谛，**你爱别人，就无条件地爱，交还给你所爱的人自我选择的权利。**如果你说，我一定要改变我爱的人，这样我就能永远占有他们了，那这根本就不是爱，也不是爱的价值和力量。所以我想对我的家人说，我现在仍然很爱他们。尽管一半家人已和我断绝往来，虽然我必须接受现实——他们必须改变才能重新回到我的生命中。至于他们是否会改变，就不是我能控制的了。

Q 你如何决定不再遵从爸爸为你设定的框架而活，去寻找真正的自我？

我换了一个视角去看待这一切，而不是拘泥于眼下发生的事。对我来说，如果我的未来注定没有家人的参与和支持，我宁愿选择先主动离开。

我觉得人人都是这样。**我们成长在各自的家庭，被塑造成既定的模样，我们总以为能够摆脱束缚，重新塑造自己。可一旦我们回到旧的环境，又会回到死循环。**或者更糟，在不健康的家庭环境中长大的孩子，会在外面的世界中寻找那些能与我们一起重复死循环的人，很多人一辈子无法挣脱。

我很喜欢来自《圣经》的一句话：“信就是所望之事的实底，是未见之事的确据。”**信仰的可贵之处正在于，它让人们相信存在更好的世界，不同的世界，相信我们可以过上与以往不同的另一种生活，体会你从未体会过的爱。但要舍弃过往，想象未来，则需要信仰和教育相结合。**只有二者相辅相成，才能遇见未知的人生，期待不一样的改变。

奥普拉与塔拉•韦斯特弗对谈

Q为什么将书命名为Educated？

我的故事想要提及的教育不是狭义上的职业培训，而是广义上的自我创造。**我担心，我们对教育的观念已经变得狭隘，过于注重工作技能。**我的教育改变了我。最终，它给了我全新的视角和自信心，让我能够以自己从未有过的方式站起来捍卫自己。如果你教我Excel或如何编程，我想它不会达到那样的效果。

随着自动化和全球化的发展，就业竞争越来越激烈。**就业危机是我们必须认真对待的事情，但教育是另一回事。理想情况下，你的教育确实为你找工作和获得成功做准备。但是教育并不能解决这些全球化或自动化的大问题。它不会解决我们的不平等危机。**当你给教育施加压力，来解决教育无法真正解决的巨大的经济和历史问题时，那些本应帮助个人过上更充实的生活的东西被夺走了，只剩下让他们成为好员工、让雇主受益的东西。

Q你觉得教师的角色是什么？你是如何做到完全自学的？

理想的情况是，你真的很想学习，而且你有机会接触到一位诺贝尔奖得主，让他告诉你如何学习。但**如果你是一个不想学习的孩子，比起那些真的想学东西的孩子，让一位诺贝尔奖得主来教你，你也一无所获。**你不能强迫人们思考，也不能强制他们学习。我喜欢把老师视为顾问，作为一种资源。**教育对我来说从来都不是一种训练，也不是我每天不经思考就要做的事。我的教育完全在我自己的掌控之中。**如果我来设计教育系统，我想吸引最好的老师，我会对他们充满信心。我想至少给孩子们一种可以自主掌控生活的信念，让他们觉得他们学到的东西在某种意义上是他们自己的责任和决定。