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Pursuing a communion of belonging

(No name for Peer Assessment)

Department of Education, University of the People

EDUC 5420: Adolescent Development

Professor Sushma Murthy

July 30, 2023

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Pursuing a communion of belonging

Maeghan Dessecker (2012) defines rumspringa as a rite of passage that Amish teenagers

may be allowed when they reach the age of 16, a time during which they “are allowed to

experience a modern world of cars, music, electricity, jeans, television, competitive sports, and

may sometimes participate in parties” (p. 6), life traits that are otherwise not regularly a part of

the customs of a member of the Amish community. The reasoning for the event, practiced by

some Amish communities but not by others, is that “because the Amish faith requires one to

willingly submit one’s life to God and the Amish way of life, some young adults wish to

experience the alternative before deciding whether or not to be Amish” (p. 6).

Reviewing the work of Steven Nolt, Rachel Stein (n.d.) observes that Amish adolescence

is different from that of the non-Amish, in the latter being “a time when youth struggle with their

identity and start to establish their independence. In contrast, Amish youth understand their

identity within the context of the community” (p. 270). In this sense, I consider rumspringa as a

valuable asset in the construction of an identity understanding because, just as it is important to

not underestimate the struggle in navigating identity and the sense of it carrying a degree of

independence, it should not be reduced to a struggle but be explored in its assertiveness of

consolidation, thus taken seriously in some identity positions becoming stabilized, including how

the teenager relates to community – even if this means identifying with practices different to it.

On teens being asked to choose between joining the Amish church or living outside of the

church and being ostracized by the Amish community, my feelings are those that typically arise

whenever considering the existence of a group and its ontology: for every inclusion it promotes,

there is likely an exclusion lingering there. In this case, the contradiction of an Amish collective

grounded in the notion of community is its exclusion of those who descend from it but who
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ultimately choose not to join the church after rumspringa. While I can track the lifestyle

differences that do not facilitate an integrated existence between those who adhere to the Amish

church and those who do not (for instance, with the use of contemporary communication

technologies), efforts should always be made to not have a categorical severing of ties.

As such, an educational implication for my experiences with students who might be

facing similar moral decisions by their families and communities is to create a space of dialogue

in my classroom, where through creative, critical and ultimately cultural projects, they can

express their struggles and assertions or, in other words, their points of contention with the

groups they are ascribed to but also the values they identify with – those that make them rejoice,

feel at home and want to celebrate. A concrete example would be to create a short movie where,

through fiction and/or non-fiction recordings, they document the life of their family and

community, voicing their critical standpoints as well as exalting what is meaningful for them.

Alternatively, or as a complementary exercise, they would develop a short research and

justification paper where they directly interrogate and reflect on the literature they reviewed for

the construction of the creative piece. I would envision both of these activities as opportunities

for learners in situations like Rumspringa to engage in deep and wide-reaching thinking about

what decision (if any) to take regarding adhering to the community of their upbringing or not, or

to devise new scenarios that allow them and others to better navigate their different identities.
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References

Dessecker, M. B. (2012). Contemporary Amish Youth and the Transition to Adulthood.

[Bachelor’s Thesis, Georgia State University]. https://doi.org/10.57709/2890473

Stein, R. (2017). Review of Nolt, Steven. 2016. Review of Nolt, Steven. 2016. The Amish: A

Concise Introduction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. 141.

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pp. 141. Journal of Amish and Plain

Anabaptist Studies 5(2), 270-272. https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

article=1086&context=amishstudies