While reading the article on the views of Amish literacy, I felt a little taken aback by the fact that they are very limited in their sponsorship of literacy. Being from a extremely rural town, my family has very good relations with the Amish. We often buy and sell materials from them, help build their parts of their houses, or even share coffee with them (pretty bitter, by the way). As much as I have been around the Amish, I do not see them as inferior or at a lower literacy level than me.

One memory is very clear to me, when I first remember meeting one of the boys from the family my father was buying a table from. He ran up to me and said, “Wie bist du heit”, to which I had no response too. At the time, I had no idea the Amish spoke another language, and I was shocked at the fact my father knew how to converse with them. However, after seeing the quizzical look on my face, the boy then said he did not know I couldn’t speak their tongue and plainly stated, “How are you?”. What I did not realize is that the Amish are not only expected to know mediocre English, but a form of German as well, called Pennsylvanian Dutch. At that time, I was still young and struggling with reading in English, while he could read, write, and speak in two.

While I understand that the Amish typically only go to school through eighth grade, I am not sure that it really takes an significant portion out of their literacy ability. Am I able to read, write, and speak in a more coherent and professional way? Of course. However, they have an entire set of sponsorship in literacy that we will never get to experience. Through their religion, work, and everyday lives, they are more proficient in many areas that the non-Amish are not. It all goes back if literacy is black-and-white or more of a gray area? If one excels in one area of literacy does that put them ahead of others, or is it one variable that we should take into account?