I felt like we had stories about family loyalty; I didn't feel like we had stories about what to do when you felt that loyalty to your family was in conflict with loyalty to yourself.
Tara WestoverRead
An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.
Interpretation
Education shapes a person's character and identity, rather than just preparing them for a job.
Tara Westover's quote emphasizes that the true purpose of education goes beyond mere vocational training; it is fundamentally about personal development and growth. Education molds a person's values, perspectives, and self-awareness, ultimately leading to a more profound and fulfilling life rather than just a means of financial sustenance.
In practice
During a graduation speech focusing on personal growth.
I felt like we had stories about family loyalty; I didn't feel like we had stories about what to do when you felt that loyalty to your family was in conflict with loyalty to yourself.
I had been educated in the rhythms of the mountain, rhythms in which change was never fundamental, only cyclical. The same sun appeared each morning, swept over the valley, and dropped behind the peak. The snows that fell in winter always melted in the spring.
We think love is noble, and in some ways, it is. But in some ways, it isn't. Love is just love. And sometimes people do terrible things because of it.
I was 17 the first time I set foot in a classroom, but 10 years later, I would graduate from Cambridge with a Ph.D. 'Educated' is the story of how I came by my education. It is also the story of how I lost my family.
I think that when memoir goes wrong, it goes wrong from too much memory, too much detail. It's about clearing all that away and just getting to the story.
Although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. I could stand with my family or with the gentiles... but there was no foothold in between.
I am convinced that no one is fully educated without a full grounding in the arts.
A child, from the time he can think, should think about all he sees, should suffer for all who cannot live with honesty, should work so that all men can be honest, and should be honest himself.
I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage.
I have what passes for an education in this day and time, but I am not deceived by it.
Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher.
How much more do they deserve our reverence and praise, whose lives are devoted to the formation of institutions, which, when they and their children are mingled in the common dust, may continue to cherish the principles and the practice of liberty in perpetual freshness and vigour.
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