Let me first start by saying I am not a reader. My entire childhood was spent nose deep in the folds of books, and the moment I realized the game that was my public school system, the magic was gone with every chapter I read and memorized to pass a specific test. I became very good at this game – that is until I burned out and yearned for deeper challenges in the standard classroom.
I’m probably not a fan of reading because it forces me to slow down. I tend to skim, and never comprehend. In 2019, I didn’t finish a single text. To be fair, I typically read non-fiction. I’ll pick up a book that piques my interest on the topic of pop culture, business, language, or politics, read 2 chapters, and move on to the next. Nothing I’ve read of late has enough of a narrative arc that I need to commit to the whole thing. And I still take something of value from what I did finish.
That isn’t to say I never read for completion, however. I spend entirely too much time on Medium reading think-pieces and op eds, but always know what I’m getting myself into with the read times brazenly labeled. To become truly engrossed in a book, I have to set aside a considerable amount of time I usually don’t feel is available for me to allocate. With a 2020 resolution to read more with purpose, an opportunity for a partnership that required me to sit down, slow down, and read for work was something I could not pass up.
In the memoir EDUCATED, by Tara Westover, we are taken on a developmental journey as the author recounts her experiences growing up in an anti-establishment, religious household. In it, Tara’s life was absent of parental affection, formal education, and common liberties such as healthcare we assume as rights to life. In place, Tara experienced abuse, was sheltered from culture, and ultimately prevented from developing her own identity. After making the decision to leave her home to attend college at BYU, and later Harvard and Cambridge, we see her story unfold – one of internal conflict and a quest for truth. Westover’s story is one of survival and perseverance, though not without points of indecision. In the book, she reminds us, we are “more complicated than the roles we are assigned in the stories other people tell” – a lesson we should not soon forget in this age of comparison and self-doubt.
A Grad School Dropout Working in Higher Ed
EDUCATED was a book I was first assigned in a college classroom. Since then, I became a grad school dropout (re:classroom burnout), but never lost my zeal for higher education. I spend each and every day on a college campus. Higher ed was such a fundamental turning point in my life, in establishing my honest identity, that I chose to make my learning space my work place after graduation. Now, I work in social media marketing for degree programs and services in agriculture. I get to see and tell the feel good stories about what opportunities higher education affords those on our campus. There are definitely folks, however, with more challenging jobs than mine, having harder conversations about the realities of accessibility and affordability of education in America today.
In this post, Penguin Random House challenged to explain what the power of education means to me. I did that in many more words than you’ll find here in my first book, Lessons We Paid For. But, for now, I’ll say my education fundamentally shaped how I engage people everyday. I believe that continued learning is essential to progress and that higher education should be a right for those who want it. In fact, I believe in it so much that I created the Space, Place & Southern Grace Fund for Feminist Studies at the University of Kentucky (my alma mater) to support degree pursuit in gender and women’s studies – entirely funded by the proceeds from my blog.
When I tell people I have degrees in Spanish and Gender and Women’s Studies, but now work in marketing and communications, I am always presented with the same question: “How did you get here?” The path is obvious, in my mind, because my degrees taught me about acceptance, interpersonal communication, forging profound relationships, and the power of persuasion. And isn’t that marketing in a nutshell?
Education, In the Literal Sense
I certainly take for granted a wonderful formative education in K-12, with exceptional educators who helped me thrive in a state not well known for its schools. My experiences in college, however, are the sole reason my blogging platform exists and why I continuously advocate for accessible knowledge. I’ve been working on my second book, though not about education in any traditional sense, for nearly two years. During the process, I’ve rooted my work in the phrase “spread truth, grow love”. I truly believe the more access your mind has to what’s really going on (via education in and outside of traditional classrooms) the better we can commit to creating a healthy and pleasant society rooted in love.
Still, reading Westover’s memoir still struck a cord so prominently in me, touching an issue with which I continue to wrestle. She writes, “Curiosity is a luxury for the financially secure.” And in that quote, she speaks volumes to the privilege I was a afforded during my time at a four-year university. I had the liberty, truly a luxury, to dive headfirst into my studies, without immense distraction or obstacle. I was free to explore new modes of thought, discuss them verbally and probe them further in writing. And receive feedback on my progress along the way.
Although my internal beliefs were challenges, I did not face the same external pressures, or basic gaps in understanding of the world, Westover recounts in leaving her family behind. Tara’s experiences studying feminism come close to mirroring my own. While not quite on the level of being unfamiliar with the Holocaust, I experienced what felt like an overwhelming awakening to the concepts of gender, privilege, intersectionality, and performativity that I had never heard of or engaged before. Without question, my education, and the continuing thereof, was essential to my success as it continues to develop.
Finding Your Voice
In many ways, EDUCATED is a coming of age book that is relatable to so many going to college for the first time – though not to the extreme that Westover experienced. She wrote, “My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.” In finding your own voice, education gives individuals the power to assert themselves, form opinions, and incite change where they see it necessary. We live in a time where this power is more needed than ever, but has more potential to get lost in a vacuum of over-stimulation.
As I read through her journey to claiming her personhood, I couldn’t help but think of how many similar untold stories there are like hers. I like to think I have a hand in uncovering them with my work in a college setting, but I know I could barely scratch the surface. At the end of the day, you don’t know the struggles of the person sitting next to you. Education, at its core, encourages positive human interactions that limit divisiveness when difference is present. Here is to all of the experiences lifelong education affords us as we better get to know others and get to know ourselves.
Have you read EDUCATED? Pick up your copy here.
This post has been sponsored by Penguin Random House. Thank you for continuing to support the brands that make Space, Place & Southern Grace possible.
