High School and College for Plain Anabaptists: Advantages and Disadvantages

[JohnH]

Plain people with 8th grade education often have a distorted idea of higher education. Perhaps they hire people from the top 1% of their classes.

What do you mean by the last sentence?

Plain entrepreneurs often hire more educated people when the business is 20-30 years old, or being run by the 2nd generation. Then they often talk of how great having more educated people is. But there isn’t any insight that those highly educated people aren’t off starting businesses, but rather are just taking jobs working for a less educated person.

They may also be very choosy in their selection criteria. So if they are being highly selective, they may end up mistaking that for thinking higher education in general produces more qualified people.

[Anthony]

There is also the element that the value of a formal education has dropped drastically, especially in the past 5 years. Almost every highly successful person believes college is “extra” or for “networking” at this point. It used to be true 40 years ago that college = confirmed middle class life, but now its way more up in the air.

The value of business ownership has increased dramatically too, with more americans participating in it than ever before. The plain people seem to be ahead of the curve here, and have a strong business ownership focus over education focus. I feel like this is the correct way to go for the near future.

The only valid response i see is “what will kids do past age 16”. They might aswell work a low level job, not like they will profit much from learning to code or designing parts with CAD software at this point.

[Anthony]

Plain people with 8th grade education often have a distorted idea of higher education. Perhaps they hire people from the top 1% of their classes.

What do you mean by the last sentence?

In my experience, Plain people think people who have gone through higher education are very smart. Or they imagine a college education really confers some high level knowledge. I think most who have been in higher education know this is not true, but its the feeling i get from Plain anabaptists I know.

[R7ehr]

Plain people with 8th grade education often have a distorted idea of higher education. Perhaps they hire people from the top 1% of their classes.

What do you mean by the last sentence?

In my experience, Plain people think people who have gone through higher education are very smart. Or they imagine a college education really confers some high level knowledge. I think most who have been in higher education know this is not true, but its the feeling i get from Plain anabaptists I know.

Mabe because in our setting, our “dumb” people don’t go to college, and of the people we know, only “smart” people are the ones who do.

[Anthony]

What do you mean by the last sentence?

In my experience, Plain people think people who have gone through higher education are very smart. Or they imagine a college education really confers some high level knowledge. I think most who have been in higher education know this is not true, but its the feeling i get from Plain anabaptists I know.

Mabe because in our setting, our “dumb” people don’t go to college, and of the people we know, only “smart” people are the ones who do.

Im not sure what “our” setting you are referring to. In my secular background setting, if you didnt go to college you were “dumb”, otherwise college of some sort was normal. The real differentiator was the tier of college you want to. My background is middle class suburban public school, striving doctors, laywers, academics. Maybe its different in other secular settings.

In my Plain setting, no one goes to any school past 10th, going past 8th is optional. Though even here there is a difference in the kids who drop out at 8th vs go to 10th. The 10th grades are smarter generally. Probably a selection effect.

[Judas Maccabeus]

In my experience, Plain people think people who have gone through higher education are very smart. Or they imagine a college education really confers some high level knowledge. I think most who have been in higher education know this is not true, but its the feeling i get from Plain anabaptists I know.

Mabe because in our setting, our “dumb” people don’t go to college, and of the people we know, only “smart” people are the ones who do.

Im not sure what “our” setting you are referring to. In my secular background setting, if you didnt go to college you were “dumb”, otherwise college of some sort was normal. The real differentiator was the tier of college you want to. My background is middle class suburban public school, striving doctors, laywers, academics. Maybe its different in other secular settings.

In my Plain setting, no one goes to any school past 10th, going past 8th is optional. Though even here there is a difference in the kids who drop out at 8th vs go to 10th. The 10th grades are smarter generally. Probably a selection effect.

In our settings, some of our high school graduates, go onto college, and some do not. It's not always a test of who is smarter or who is not smarter, it's more a test of what do they want to do. Those that want to run a business may not need much education, but a young person that wants to be an accountant or nurse does.

I will say this, maybe it's because of this urban setting we are in, but none of our young people go away to a secular college, if they're in higher education, they remain connected to their church, remain connected to their family, and have the advice and encouragement of ministry and others still giving input into their lives. Virtually any major or program is available within a 30 minute drive.

It would be my contention that the dormitory experience is probably more destructive than the actual education. So far, we've had good results with young people that are in education, and living at home.

[JohnH]

I will say this, maybe it's because of this urban setting we are in, but none of our young people go away to a secular college, if they're in higher education, they remain connected to their church, remain connected to their family, and have the advice and encouragement of ministry and others still giving input into their lives. Virtually any major or program is available within a 30 minute drive.

It would be my contention that the dormitory experience is probably more destructive than the actual education. So far, we've had good results with young people that are in education, and living at home.

Most plain Mennonites aren't in an urban setting, and so for nearly all plain people, going to college means being far away from home.

Part of my opinion on this matter is (back when I was in a moderate-conservative church setting) that every single person who went to college fell away from the faith (as in no longer was Anabaptist at all, although some remained nominally Christian). That really soured me on the value of higher education.

If people with higher education are somehow badly needed in plain circles... win more seekers. But the groups with nobody past 8th grade education seem to be just fine.

[eccentric_rambler]

In my experience, Plain people think people who have gone through higher education are very smart. Or they imagine a college education really confers some high level knowledge. I think most who have been in higher education know this is not true, but its the feeling i get from Plain anabaptists I know.

As a NMB friend said "In society, I'm a college dropout. In my church I'm considered an educated man."

[Anthony]

In my experience, Plain people think people who have gone through higher education are very smart. Or they imagine a college education really confers some high level knowledge. I think most who have been in higher education know this is not true, but its the feeling i get from Plain anabaptists I know.

As a NMB friend said "In society, I'm a college dropout. In my church I'm considered an educated man."

Hahahah, very relatable. Its jarring having your status shift so dramatically when joining a church. This includes the downward shifts aswell as the upward shifts.

This reminds me of a time I met another NMB whos successfully been in my church for 15 years, people have mentioned his Electrical Engineering degree and current job as a cnc machinst/programmer as evidence of how smart he is. I got to talking to him and found out his degree is from a community college in Maryland, and his GPA was ~3.0. Not much to write home about if you’ve been through college, but im sure all the plain people were impressed anyway.

[Jazman]

Sad. https://lancasteronline.com/features/fo ... 932ea.html

This could be spun off into a whole other discussion... I can see sadness on both sides... my own family story testifies to the unintended consequences of 8th grade only vs at least a HS education. I think some OO Amish would benefit from some HS education in their own schools or maybe home school style after the 1-room 8th grade only... (I would disagree somewhat with Kraybill's assertion in this piece, for ex this - “They’re creative, they’re savvy. They're doing well. So why would [they] need more than eighth grade?” Kraybill asks.
But why not send their children past the eighth grade in their own schools?
It's simply not necessary for their way of life, he says. It works for them." (Some of their businesses and its necessary interaction with the "English" world might strain this, if not now, maybe sometime, soon?)

Anyway back to the OP...

Can you tell us more about the unintended consequences?

"Consequences" might be too strong... more like missed opportunities? As it's personal family I'm thinking of I stay vague, and I was thinking of solely high school (not beyond). Here are a few things I received in high school that some of my siblings did not and that we weren't getting anywhere else. (I realize some these could be receive at home or even church, but in our situation they were not)
1. Anabaptist/church history and class discussions with other teenagers and our teacher (also a minister) on some of the practical implications (beyond plain dress)
2. Higher level maths/science (a sibling currently is studying some of this in community college and they're neurodiverse brain really gravitates towards this, but they're in their 40's... they've found their calling/vocation... but about 20-25yrs late... HS would have opened that door, instead they went nowhere past 8gr and wandered in the wilderness for yrs)
3. HS for me was finally the door out of the Charity/extended-family-only social bubble... it was maturing to interact with other people from other churches; other parts of the Menno world in our area.

Just a few and by no means a fix-all... my siblings would still have had issues and HS wouldn't have been the fix-all (some did go to HS and still...) But it may have opened doors for those that stopped at 8th gr or may have mitigated some other things but I realize this may be a game of what-if? Overall, I believe some kind of edu after 8th gr would be beneficial for many or some OO Anabaptists.