Amish Teaching Is Diverse, Author Discovers

An anthropologist who visited Amish schools in five states has published a scholarly book showing such schools are not frozen in time and are diverse in how they educate children to live apart from the world.

In Train Up a Child: Old Order Amish and Mennonite Schools , Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, an associate professor of anthropology at the State University of New York College at Potsdam, provides insight into a sector of private schooling that, boosted by high birth rates among Amish, is one of the fastest-growing in the country. The book is based on her observations in 38 private schools and interviews with 142 people from eight Amish communities and one Old Order Mennonite community.

“The Amish are 21st-century people who have to explore modernity,” Ms. Johnson-Weiner said in an interview last week. “The communities continue to evaluate their role of how they will react to the dominant society.” Paring back or adding school subjects or selecting textbooks viewed as more relevant reflect changes in how Amish people view their role in the broader world, she...