Nancy notes that last month’s book and this month’s book both have strong themes of domestic violence. There is a National Domestic Violence Hotline for people experiencing domestic violence and also loved ones who are looking for ideas or resources. Linny says when she was working in domestic violence, that was the hotline people used to get information. The number is 1-800-799-7233. To text, it’s just: 88788. The website is https://www.thehotline.org It is a national hotline. They tell callers not only about national, but also well local resources. Linny says, unless it’s an emergency (emergency calls should be made to 911), this is a great first call. Today we interview Dr. Ted Hamann about Educated by Tara Westover. Ted is the Charles Bessey professor of teaching, learning and teacher education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Ted is an anthropologist of education with a primary scholarly focus on the interface between education policy and practice, especially on how transnational movement of students and families gets conceptualized by educators and results in various subsequent responses. He is author/editor of 14 books/monographs/journal special issues and has published almost 100 journal articles and book chapters. In 2019, Hamann served as a Fulbright Garcia-Robles U.S. Scholar at the Tijuana campus of the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional studying binational higher education collaborations that were intended to better prepare educators in both the United States and Mexico. He is an AERA fellow of the American +Education Research Association and a NEPC fellow at the National Education Policy Center. Ted tells us he is interested in the intersection of educational and anthropology. Anthropology is a sprawling field, but it is a field that considers language and culture. Education is an aspect of anthropology because it is the way peoples have decided to pass on their humanity. Ted’s work looks at education through the lens of anthropological methods at investigating what is going on in classrooms, in teacher education, in teaching communities, and so on. There are questions of who is a credible messenger. Ted also gives us the example of schools with changing demographics and how teachers might adjust their styles to accommodate children of different cultures. A lot of his work looks at how transnational movement of children impacts their education. The imagining of who we are, such as Tara’s quest, is also an anthropological question. Ted tells us that in EDUCATED, Tara is careful to indicate that the book is not a critique of Mormonism. But he feels she is rejecting that the religion is “the only way,” and instead, looks more detached way, as a philosophy and means of social organization. She is able to claim a new identity for herself, but still does want to stay connected to her community. Linny says that Tara was successful in navigating the culture of her family, but struggles when she goes to college. Ted says Tara has learned habits through self-education that are helpful in college: finding her own answers, making sense of insensible ideas, self-reliance. Ted says, Tara would have gone to college with a unique way of looking at the world which would have been interesting to her professors. Nancy thinks the concept that Tara actually did go to college with some tools, not just a deficit. Ted says this is likely what made her stand out and competitive for some of the prestigious awards she won. Nancy told Ted that Tara’s story reminded her of the challenges of many first-generation college students, perhaps multiplied by a thousand given their extreme opposition. Ted agrees, observing that Tara is torn not only between family and college, but she is also pressured to stay home so that she can continue to help with the family salvage business. College also exposes Tara to ideas of mental illness which further separates her from simple acceptance. Ted says family’s ideas of what is their path is strong. Ted comes from a family with generation of higher education, so his pursuit of a PhD was familiar. First generation families who support their children going to college have a profound faith in the unknown and that education will help their children achieve beyond what they have experienced. Nancy says she thinks college professors are some of the heroes of Tara’s stories. Ted tells us that he learns a lot of his students, perhaps especially his graduate students who are creating new knowledge. He said Tara likely brought such an original point of view to her work that her faculty likely were enthused about seeing something new. Linny, after being quiet for a bit, pipes up and rejects that Tara’s experience is the norm. She didn’t experience any of those transformational “ahas” and engaging interactions with her professors. Linny said, given her background, Tara must have had a high IQ to have achieved what she did. Ted agrees and says Tara’s habits of self-reliance helped her. He agrees there are lots of students who go to college and never are told they should become professors. Ted says that reading Tara’s story is like reading the story of someone who became a major-leaguer. They are the exceptional talent that is fun to read about. Linny agrees, saying that even with young children, a person is able to identify children with special talents. Nancy continues to maintain that educators play an important role in many people’s lives. Ted says school is a vehicle of social mobility but is also mean to a lot of people. He says there are a lot of adults walking around with scars from school. Linda agrees. Linny says what interested her about Tara’s story was less her academic explorations, but more the outside of classroom learnings. Ted says going away to college is a powerful experience for many students. For the first time, students find themselves with much greater autonomy than they may have previously experienced. Ted notes that John Stuart Mill’s observation that there are concepts about which nothing may be fully known, was something that Tara applies to many domains. Ted thinks she is able to use this idea to not reject everything her father says, but to reject that what he says is the final understanding of life. Nancy says study abroad, likewise, is part of exposing students to new ways of thinking. Linny was glad Tara started at BYU because it was still rooted in her faith community and she was surrounded by kind students who were different from her but helped her acclimate to a less extreme view. Ted says it was crucial for Tara to have the opportunity to get away from her home and away from her family’s expectations. Linny notes that there were several times Tara was nearly sucked back into the family. Linny says she did learn a lot in her master’s program. Ted says older students who have a reason for higher education are often find education offer greater possibilities. Linny said that she knew she didn’t want to work in a factory her whole life and that motivated her to go to college. Nancy speculates that Tara understood that she could never live authentically in her family unit and that education was a path for finding who she truly is. Ted said he’s glad he read the book and is recommending it to others. Linny said she is too, and even the day of the recording, she recommended it to friends who are educators in prison. She says the book is full of inspiration. Ted notes that he thought the book was going to be a whole lot more about formal education. Turns out, it was much more about extra-academic environments. Ted tells us he is current working on two areas of research: 1) schools as community and the interaction of community to success, and 2) recruitment, preparation, and retention of new teachers from difficult to staff schools. After the interview, Linny says she is excited Ted recognizes that education may be harmful to some. Nancy reflects that she and Linny had some of the same high school teachers, but had completely different experiences with them. Linny said the interview actually brought up some negative emotions for her that started welling up. She suggests that teachers should be recruited from C and D students, not A students. Linny gives the book a 10 out of 10. It will be a top of the year book for her.