A Lesson From The Amish Analysis

Beards, Buggies and Bonnets: Uncovering the Truth Within the Amish Community

Too often, society is too distracted oohing and aahing over the little boys’ miniature overalls and straw hats or the little girls’ dainty bonnet to question the Amish community. Regardless if it are those living around them or tourists, their lifestyles rarely produce criticism. Whether it is deception or no true issue exists is up for interpretation and debate. Regardless when analyzation begins, the Amish communities’ views on education are often overlooked. To try to shed light on literacy and schooling amongst Amish children, educator Andrea Fishman reveals her research in her article “Becoming Literate: A Lesson from the Amish”. Within this piece, Fishman preforms

a case study on the Fishers, an Amish family, and how their children were educated. While analyzing the education they receive both in a school and a home setting, Fishman extrapolates on how children are taught to think and how that contributes to the standard of Amish thinking. Even though Fishman does a thorough job of highlighting the possible issues behind the literacy of Amish children, her piece may hold an explanation of how the Amish lifestyle has continued to survive through generation to generation. One of the reasons explaining their endurance is hidden in their use of isolationism from English, the term the Amish use to describe anyone who is not Amish regardless of their ethnicity, and their modern society. Furthermore to illustrate the unspoken concerns, other various works are referenced within this piece. In America’s advancing society, the Amish community must adapt; however, the changes must be slow and minimal while maintaining the traditions which have survived thus far, or else they risk jeopardizing their preexisting sustainability. It is imperative that the Amish continue to construct solid family ties, making it especially difficult for younger generations to leave the community. By instilling religion into children at such a young age as well as teaching them to read without interpreting or analyzing what they read will keep the younger generations from questioning their faith. Despite what may be best for the Amish child in terms of experiencing diversity, limiting integration as early and as often as possible, such as Amish run school houses, children will be less influenced by modernity. In order to prevent Amish adolescents from curiosity and experimentation, it is best that integration with English individuals be avoided as much as possible during both primary education and occupations in public settings.
Certainly, without the interconnectedness of their families and their communities, the Amish would not have persevered up and into the 21st century. Different cultures throughout the world have varying interpretations and goals expected of their families. After preforming studies regarding the Amish, the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies concluded that
“Networks of extended families provide a strong sense of identity in Amish society.

The family provides a dense web of social support from cradle to grave. […] Family members help each other during an emergency, a fire or flood, and, of course, at a death”. The Amish community would not have withstood the drastically shifting eras had it not been for their foundation built on solid family and community relationships. Within Amish homes, bonds between siblings, parents and their children, as well as potentially extended families ties including aging grandparents or other relatives, are of utmost importance. Importantly, these interrelationships are not left within the household as the Amish community holds an interconnectedness inclusive to the community that creates an additional support network. This patchwork community of benevolence is not a gift, but a reward. There are expectations and consequences, as the BBC reports “[…] Members are expected to believe the same things and follow the same code of behaviour (called the Ordnung). The purpose of the ordnung is to help the community lead a godly life. […] If a person breaks the rules they may be 'shunned', which means that no-one (including their family) will eat with them or talk to them”. Expectations must be met for an Amish individual to earn and maintain their spot within the community. Despite guidelines wavering depending on each community and their location, the Amish are expected to follow God and seek salvation in a preset and dictated manner. Punishments for breaking the ordnung are strictly enforced and the insubordinate individual is completely excommunicated as a result of their disobedience. Since family connectedness is universally valued amongst Amish communities, if an individual is shunned, they will lose not only their community status but communications will be severed between immediate family members. When applied to education, if prohibited by that particular Ordnung, pursing a higher

education, is punished. Rules stay static when every time they are challenged, they are punished.
Being shunned by the Amish community can be a punishment for breaking community guidelines, but this is not always the circumstance as individuals who leave the faith will be shunned as a result. Paired with family connectedness, the promise of disownment keeps individuals from leaving the church as well. In the same fashion as the tightness of the family, the implementation of religion begins at birth as well. Once children are old enough to sound out words, they are given Bibles and hymns to read despite being too young to understand the text’s meaning. Not only giving them reading material, the Amish parents, within her study, go one step further with censorship, as Fishman recalls “Eli and Anna attempt to carefully control the reading material that enters their home. Anna buys books primarily from a local Christian bookstore and from an Amish-operated dry goods store, both of which she trusts not to stock objectionable material” (239). While giving the child specific reading material, the Amish parents are making a conscious effort to avoid exposing their child to anything outside the faith. By withholding subjective material, Amish parents are able to engrave their faith at such an influential in a child’s life. Furthermore, children cannot question what they do not know and if this material is withheld, the will have nothing to compare their previously acquired knowledge to and will accept that faith as the truth because of that upbringing. Even though these are literacy skills potentially deemed as essential, Fishman reveals that “Critical reading – individual analysis and interpretation – of the sort considered particularly important by most people who are mainstream-educated or mainstream educators is not valued by the Amish because of its potentially divisive, counterproductive power” (246). In addition, critical thinking not an easy skill to go through life without having as questioning what others say, what others do, and various other situations lead as a survival skill. By limiting what a child can and cannot read, in one form or another, limits their potential regarding literacy. Spoon-fed ideologies shoved down the throats of children may not necessarily be ethical; however, this is another explanation as to why the Amish community continues to strive. Unable to question what they do not know, especially those not integrated into public schools, these children often grow into adults who do not doubt their faith. Ultimately, this intense conditioning at such a young age is also responsible for keeping individuals from abandoning the community.
When doubtful thinking is deemed as blasphemous by the Amish, it is difficult to decide whether literacy education or faith education is more important. Although some would argue one way, others may argue against. Either way, this is not a new issue as Amish communities have struggled in the past regarding their viewpoints on education. The court case is known as Wisconsin v. Yoder and, as the BBC synapses was “[…] A supreme court case in which the Amish successfully argued that education beyond aged 14 exposed their children to modern values that clashed with their beliefs and might put their salvation at risk”. What this victory meant for the Amish was that their children were able to quit school after the eighth grade, regardless of it being public schools or Amish schoolhouses. To clarify, Amish schoolhouses are exclusively Amish and are taught by an Amish woman who too has not completed education past the eighth grade. Above all, these Amish schoolhouses prevent integration with English children, potentially exposing Amish children to forbidden technology and conflicting ideologies. On the other hand, Fishman uses the son of the Fisher family to create a hypothetical, proposing that if “To conform to his teacher’s demands and values, he would have had to devalue or disavow those of his parents - […] a demand that seems unfair, uncalled for, and unnecessary not to mention counterproductive and destructive” (247). Due to the conflicting beliefs not only amongst English and Amish students, there is also a second barrier distancing the Amish students from their English teacher. Therefore, integration becomes potentially dangerous to not only the identity of an Amish individual but also to their family network. Although it has worked for them thus far, the Amish cannot continue to rely on the Supreme Court to always rule in their favor. Although Old Order, the more conservative group, Amish still rely on schoolhouses to educate their children in an extremely controlled environment, it is not indefinitely protected; however, avoiding integration at that influential age could prevent curiosity sparked by diversity in primary school.
Whether it is based on scarcity, modernization, or convenience, quite a few Amish children never step foot within an Amish schoolhouse and are enrolled in public school. As expected, minorities will form cliques by exclude others who are not affiliated with that particular group. Even though isolation does occur, because classrooms are small and children are curious, it is not long before English children bombard those with different appearances with typically inappropriate inquiries uncommon to hear amongst adults. Even though there is diversity, it does not become a threat until the latter years. Once given more freedom, Amish preteens and teenagers in middle school may start questioning their faith or possibility fantasize about leaving the community once they are older. To kill curiosity before it becomes anything more than empty plans and dreams, before they join the church, the Amish community lets their adolescents go on a Rumspringa, an experiment of modern liberty without parental or church consequences. Surprisingly, this time of experimentation is not detrimental to the communities and their number of followers, as the BBC reports that “After this period, most children prefer to return to the full Amish lifestyle with both its restrictions and rewards, and are baptised into full membership”. The fact that the majority of Amish adolescents return to the church after they have experimented with English lifestyles may be confusing to some, but there are other significant matters to bear in mind. In spite of there being no informal consequences from their reckless behavior binge, the Amish adolescents have heard their whole life that worldly items and desires only impede salvation. If that does not stop those enjoying Rumspringa, than the thought of being ostracized indefinitely if they were to leave the church will. Between those two factors alone is why the Amish return to the church afterwards. Rumspringa dwindles down to nothing but the allusion of freedom to keep their members from attempting to leave at a later point in their lives. This effective scare tactic is explained by English professor Terence Brunk who states “As citizens, readers may want to affirm shared values, for the sake of stability or solidarity, for the sake of continuity and orderly life” (xviii-xix). All individuals want stability within their lives, especially during the fragile time of young adulthood. To leave a community and be shunned means that individual, after living their entire life surrounded by support, will have to start anew, leaving behind the stability they once had. All in all, it is incredibly difficult for an individual to walk away from all they have ever known and had the Amish not instilled family, community, and faith at such a young age, Rumspringa might have difference results.
After spending the majority of my young life living amongst the Amish in the tightknit community of Nappanee, Indiana, I can attest to their success. Jealous of their cliques and prize-winning reading abilities, I spent my elementary school days envying my Amish classmates. At the end of the day, I realize that I was, indeed, the lucky one. Coupled with faster means of transportation and technological opium, I at least had the ability to finish high school. Furthermore, I had the opportunity to attend a university without fearing my family would disown me, in fact, in might have been the opposite. Under those circumstances, it was a tradeoff of a life of simplicity or a life of freedom. One may argue that there is freedom in simplicity; however, there is not freedom in strict, authoritative lifestyles which rewards complete compliance with ambiguous simplicity. In contrast, there is no unanimous agreement that waking up early every day before the sun rises to shovel animal waste is a facile existence. But to the Amish, even though the grass might be greener on the other side, they can only attest to its vibrancy but after Rumspringa, the grass is not to be touched nor questioned. In the final analysis, that is how the rules are and that is how the rules will stay regarding the timeless pilgrims of modern society we know as the Amish.