Train Up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools

Train Up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools. By Karen M. Johnson-Weiner. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007. 290 pp., $49.95, hardback, ISBN 978-0-8018-8495-5.

Since the 1930s, private Old Order Amish schools have evoked both wistful admiration and indignant condemnation. Simple schools that stress academic basics, some assert, represent the best of a bygone era, while others contend that schooling that stops at the eighth grade and employs untrained teachers utterly fails its pupils. But praised or despised, Amish schools in such discussions often ended up as caricatures.

This deeply researched book by anthropologist Karen Johnson-Weiner moves far beyond stereotypes to reveal a complex and multifaceted Amish educational world. Describing schools in nine quite different communities across five states, the book documents diversity. Five chapters offer case studies of various types of Old Order schools, analyzing...