Educated

Tara Westover’s Educated resonated with me profoundly. Though our upbringings were vastly different, our experiences of using education to transform our destinies share striking similarities.

Tara’s childhood in the Idaho mountains reminded me of my own early years in rural Henan. While my family didn’t have the extreme anti-intellectualism of hers, there were similar limitations in understanding education’s value. Her anxiety when first entering a classroom, her distress upon discovering the vast knowledge gap between herself and peers—these were emotions I had experienced firsthand.

What moved me most was Tara’s profound reflection on the meaning of “education.” Education isn’t merely knowledge transmission; it’s the awakening of consciousness and expansion of horizons. As she wrote: “Education gave me the power to choose, to examine my past and shape my own identity.” This captures education’s essence—not to deny the past, but to gain the ability to understand and choose.

Tara’s conflict with her family made me contemplate the tension between tradition and modernity, attachment and independence. She ultimately chose knowledge and reason, though the process was filled with pain and struggle. This made me cherish my own educational journey even more. While I too faced conflicts between family expectations and personal aspirations, I was fortunate to receive understanding and support from my loved ones.

This book taught me that true education is a process of self-creation. Everyone has the right to redefine themselves and transcend the limitations of birth and environment. As the title suggests, we should all be like birds, flying toward our own mountains—toward the peaks of knowledge, understanding, and self-realization.