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
During my first semester of college, I raised my hand in a class and asked the professor to define a word I didn't know. The word was holocaust, and I had to ask because, until that moment, I had never heard of it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Asking questions is crucial for learning, even about difficult topics.
In this quote, Tara Westover reflects on her experience of seeking knowledge in an academic setting, highlighting the importance of curiosity and the courage to ask questions, especially about significant historical events. Her admission of ignorance regarding the term 'holocaust' underscores that education is a lifelong journey and that acknowledging what we don't know is the first step toward learning and understanding complex subjects.
Themes
EducationCuriosityKnowledgeLearningHolocaust
In practice
Example use cases
In a classroom setting, when discussing the importance of knowledge, you could use this quote to illustrate how asking questions fosters learning.
More from Tara Westover
All quotes →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.
Tara WestoverRead
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.
Tara WestoverRead
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.
Tara WestoverRead
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.
Tara WestoverRead
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.
Tara WestoverRead
Similar quotes
A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discovers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.
Carl LinnaeusRead
There is not human being from whom we cannot learn something if we are interested enough to dig deep.
Eleanor RooseveltRead
If you're just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television's electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.
Stephen KingRead
Teaching the history of the British Empire links in with that of the world: for better and for worse, the Empire made us what we are, forming our national identity. A country that does not understand its own history is unlikely to respect that of others.
Antony BeevorRead
Merely gathering knowledge may become the most useless work a man can do. What can you do to help and heal the world? That is the educational test.
Henry FordRead
Widening the talent pipeline sufficiently will require a generational commitment to teaching math and science, providing technical training, and mentoring young people of all backgrounds so they understand the full range of possibilities that a career in technology affords.
John T. ChambersRead