'Educated' author Tara Westover to join Glenbard webinar Feb. 23
The Glenbard Parent Series has selected the riveting "Educated: A Memoir" by best-selling author Tara Westover as its second semester Community-Wide Read. Glenbard Parent Series, in partnership with the College of DuPage, will host Westover in a webinar at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 23. Go to cod.edu/GPS to view this livestream event.
This raw and powerfully inspirational story is a testament to courage and resilience. It details Westover's struggles to reconcile her desire for education and autonomy with her need to be loyal to her violent and dysfunctional family.
Westover was born in Idaho, the youngest of seven children, to survivalist parents opposed to public education. An older brother taught her to read, and after that, her education was erratic and haphazard, with most of her days spent working in her father's junkyard or stewing herbs for her mother.
She was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. After that first encounter with education, she pursued learning for a decade, graduating magna cum laude from Brigham Young University in 2008 and subsequently winning a Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
She received a Master of Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge in 2009 and in 2014 was awarded a Ph.D. in history. Currently, she is a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, working on projects related to media and political polarization.
Westover will be interviewed in conversation with Heidi Stevens of the Chicago Tribune.
GPS is generously sponsored by the Cebrin Goodman Center, Community Consolidated School District 93 Birth to 5 Community Coalition, Cooperative Association for Special Education (CASE), College of DuPage, DuPage Medical Group, Emmy Gaffey Foundation, Glenbard Early Childhood Collaborative, Holiday Inn/Carol Stream, Kiwanis Clubs of District 9, and Prevention Leadership Team of the DuPage County Health Department.
For further information, visit glenbardgps.org or contact Gilda Ross, Glenbard District 87 student and community projects coordinator, at (630) 942-7668 or gilda_ross@glenbard.org.