These clips from Westover’s talk with Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, at the 2019 Aspen Ideas Festival help establish discussion surrounding Educated. They touch on some of Westover’s key messages regarding the book's context and themes. Other than these, classes could discuss the authority of family, curiosity of youth, (de)construction of beliefs, difficulty of maintaining relationships, and self-realization associated with hardship. Conversations could also touch on the reliability of childhood memories (as it relates to writing a memoir), trust Americans have in others (as it relates to survivalism), and education deserts (as they relate to rural areas).

Timestamps:

02:15 - 04:38 | different interpretations of the book

06:14 - 08:34 | why Westover wrote Educated and how the process started 

14:07 - 15:50 | the complexity of writing about one’s family