Charting a Third Way in Minority Education: Transformative Community in the Old Order Mennonite Church of Kreider County

Abstract

It is a mild fall morning. The day is overcast, with thick banks of clouds hanging over fields of deep brown soil littered with the withered parchment stalks of recently harvested corn. The leaves are still on the trees but there is not much color, the result of atypically warm nights. Mountain View School is a plain white clapboard building set in a grassy schoolyard dotted with large shade trees that encloses a rudimentary softball diamond, a seesaw and several swings, and a few hitching posts. It is located in an area of prosperous and productive farms, spread over rolling hills, with views of mountains in the distance. The children have arrived at the school by bicycle, hired van, and horse and buggy. There are two classrooms accommodating children in grades one through four and grades five through eight. Inside the lower-grade classroom it is cheerful, comfortable, and secure. The school was founded in 1968 in response to two amendments to the state's compulsory school attendance law removing the right of Old Order Mennonite parents to determine the number of years of schooling for their children. Although the Old Order Church is in the peace tradition, with a strong ethic of nonresistance, these amendments represented a line in the sand. It was eventually ruled that the Old Order appeal represented a conscientious objection to higher education that was inherent to their religious beliefs. Apart from a requirement to ensure that children are in school through the eighth grade or age 16, the ruling established the right of the church to determine every aspect of its own schooling. Numerous other Old Order Mennonite groups have faced similar struggles for the right to educate their children, most prominently in the case of Wisconsin v. Yoder, which climaxed in a 1972