Amish Education and Schooling

An insider’s opinion on the Amish school

Byerik
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The eight-grades-and-out system has been criticized by some.  One Amish teacher’s opinion, (taken from The Amish School, co-authored by Amish schoolteacher Sara E. Fisher and European Mennonite transplant Rachel K. Stahl): But do Amish schools prepare their children for life? Amish schools prepare their children to be God-fearing, hardworking, and self-supporting persons. They do not, however, teach them to be self-seeking, ambitious, and competitive. Amish…

Amish schooling issues

Byerik
8 Comments

The Amish commitment to restricting schooling to eight grades is well-known.  But what happens with those individuals who are driven to go further? In Amish Society, John Hostetler examines the issue. ‘Before the Amish operated their own schools, more Amish youths were exposed to the possibilities of higher education and to teachers who inspired them to continue their education than is the case today.  To…

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Book Review: The Happening by Harvey Yoder

Byerik
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Today marks a year since the Nickel Mines School shooting.  Ten girls were shot.  Five perished.  Five lived on.  A community was rocked by an unthinkable loss.  The world watched and learned a rare lesson in forgiveness and grace. ‘The happening’ is the name local Amish attached to the event, and The Happening is author Harvey Yoder’s attempt to reconstruct, order, and make sense of…

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Visiting an Amish School

Byerik
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The nine-year-old daughter of my friends ‘Aden’ and ‘Elizabeth’ invited me to visit her school last Monday.  I couldn’t pass that up.  Elizabeth and I walked up a few minutes beforehand;  ‘Naomi’ was already there, so not to miss out on the half-hour of playtime before the first bell. A vigorous game of six-square was in session when we arrived.  The kids let me join. …

Can Amish Men Be Teachers?

Byerik
13 Comments

Male teachers are a rarity in the Amish school. Primarily an occupation for young unmarried women, one father, ‘Robert’, estimated that there were only about a half-dozen male teachers in the Holmes County vicinity, out of approximately 170 one-room schools.  A quick count in the 2005 church directory actually turned up closer to 20, but with many schools having more than one teacher, males still…

Not that Winesburg

Byerik
11 Comments

WHEN I was in college, I read a book by Sherwood Anderson called Winesburg, Ohio.  I remember it as a mostly downbeat collection of vignettes of small town life.  As I recall it was firmly entrenched in the university Lit canon.  Inspired Hemingway or something like that. This is not that Winesburg.  Anderson’s town was fictional. The real Winesburg, Ohio also happens to be a…

Amish Vocational Schooling

Byerik
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‘A hog farmer and a teacher!!’ Hog farms are few and far between in Lancaster dairyland, and hog farmers who deal with Amish ‘ninth-graders’ on a regular basis even fewer. Perhaps that’s why ‘Ephraim’ nearly shouted at me in glee when describing his odd occupational mix.  He’s been handling vocational school duties for his area for twenty years now.  You can tell he enjoys it….

Three Lancaster observations

Byerik
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After three weeks in the county, three more observations from Lancaster: Hair–men’s hairstyles here seem to range from the very short and close cropped to the much more Swartzentruber-esque bob.  Women’s hair is arranged a bit differently than midwestern Amish curled in tightly at the sides–almost too tight–but more on that later. Mennonites–the Old Order Mennonite population is significant here, with many ‘buggy Mennonites‘ populating…

History lesson from a Bishop

Byerik
2 Comments

What to do when you’re a retired Amish bishop?  Maybe a lecture tour. That could be what one Amish leader has in mind in northern Indiana. Goshen News reports that ‘Atlee Dan’ Miller recently gave a talk on Amish history and the settlement of his region, Amish education, and church splits to an audience at the Topeka Historical Society.  The talk was held in the…

Amish tax myths

Byerik
2 Comments

‘The Amish don’t pay taxes.  They’re freeloaders.’ Ryan Robinson of the Lancaster New Era writes (no longer available) that myths such as these persist, apparently even among long-time neighbors of the Amish. Why the confusion? Amish are generally exempt from paying Social Security taxes, a privilege negotiated some years ago with the federal government.  But at the same time they also refrain from receiving benefits….