How I Celebrated Easter and Good Friday as an Amish American Child

by Torah Bontrager | Apr 6, 2021 | Amish Culture

If you’d like to know how to celebrate the Easter holiday the Amish way, I share my practicing Amish experiences of various aspects, from the Easter bunny to Easter egg hunts to church services, below. (Keep scrolling for the video version of this post.) Good...

Freedom and Democracy Absolutely Fail Children in the US

by Torah Bontrager | Feb 8, 2021 | Amish Culture

Part 3 of 3 – See Why Is STEM Education in the US So Important to Big Tech? for Part 2 Democracy The prevailing secular political force that continues to influence the educational system of the United States is democracy, the form of government upon which the...

Why Is STEM Education in the US So Important to Big Tech?

by Torah Bontrager | Feb 7, 2021 | Amish Culture

Part 2 of 3 – See This Is How to Grasp What Education in America Is Really About for Part 1 Economy Economics is another social force that influenced the educational system in the United States. For example, the advent of industrialization meant that companies...

This Is How to Grasp What Education in America Is Really About

by Torah Bontrager | Feb 6, 2021 | Amish Culture

Introduction In order to understand what education in the United States is really about, take a close look at the history, philosophy, and sociology of American education. In this post, I’ll discuss how three (3) social and political forces––religion, economics,...

This Is What Happens When Religion Outweighs Children’s Rights

by Torah Bontrager | Jan 15, 2021 | Amish Culture

Part 2 of 4 – See This Devastating Lawsuit Destroys Your Right to Learn for Part 1 For the Amish, the 1972 US Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder disputes were about retaining the ability to force a child to work for free—and thereby reduce payroll...

This Devastating Lawsuit Destroys Your Right to Learn

by Torah Bontrager | Jan 14, 2021 | Amish Culture

Introduction When I was fifteen years old, I was forced to escape in the middle of the night in order to flee a childhood of abuse and go to school beyond the Amish eighth grade. The Amish religion, an insular fundamentalist form of Christian Protestantism that falls...