Posts Tagged ‘Amish education’
Plain Roots: Community, Story, and Support for Higher Education
We are getting glimpses of Spring up here in northern Vermont. David and I spent the first week of March in Pennsylvania and Virginia. It was good to have a change of scenery, and experience some warmer weather. However, as luck would have it, we had snow in Harrisonburg on Tuesday, while Vermont was experiencing…
Read More“A Character that is Truly My Own”
Many years ago, when I was a young girl attending an Amish school in northeastern Ohio, I had a friend named Ruth. I felt privileged to have her as a friend because my family’s reputation was so poor in the community. Ruth’s family was considered “mission-minded” because they talked openly about what it means to…
Read MoreThe Gift of Learning
I mentioned in my last post that I volunteer for the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund. Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with the team to review the inspiring applications we have received this year. I then posted on the ADSF blog, and I am publishing it here as well. The ADSF team met to…
Read MoreRose Fisher: From an Amish Childhood to a PhD in Linguistics
Today I return to the theme of stories from others who found their way to college from an Amish education. At the symposium at Elizabethtown College in June, there was a group of us who had struggled a great deal before we found our way to college partly because we were recovering from an abusive…
Read MoreFrom PhD to MD by Dr. Harley Yoder
After a pause (I will explain the pause at a later date), I return to publishing stories from attendees of the symposium “How Our Amish Heritage Influences Our Education and Career” at Elizabethtown College on June 8. All of the stories we heard that day were triumphant, and this one by Dr. Harley Yoder is…
Read MoreSexual Abuse of Amish Women and Teenagers – The David Clark Case
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. ~ Maya Angelou There was widespread abuse of Amish women and teenagers that took place in Oak Grove, Missouri, by a man named David Clark who posed as a naturopath with a chiropractor license. He targeted Amish women and girls who had little…
Read MoreWhen Someone Leaves the Amish
The Roads Taken There are as many paths out of an Amish community as there are those who have left. The one most often taken is the one towards what many call “spiritual freedom.” In most Amish communities, it is not encouraged to study or interpret the Bible for oneself. There is more emphasis on…
Read MoreFilm Series about Sexual Abuse among Plain People: “Sins of the Amish”
I have written this on my blog before about the Amish culture, and I will again. Abuse can only exist in the dark shadows of silence and secrecy that shroud abuse in all cultures. However, the insular nature of Plain communities makes the silence so thick, it becomes nearly impenetrable. This makes it dauntingly difficult…
Read MoreChange in Amish Education? A Mennonite Ponzi Scheme, and a New Venture
I came across a story last night that I’m hoping is a sign that some Amish are beginning to think about educating their children through tenth grade instead of the traditional Amish eighth-grade education. The Elkhart Truth published an article about a bill passed in the Indiana House of Assembly that is helping to accommodate…
Read MoreBicycles in Amish Country
Those who have read my book, Bonnet Strings, know how much I longed to ride a bicycle when I was in my early twenties. I knew that some other Amish communities allowed them, and I wished so much that they would change that rule of the Ordnung. But they didn't. We lived with the double…
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