Portrait of a young Amish man: a world apart from "Englishness"

Jacob Stoltzfus is in his final year of formal education, and it shows.

His bright eyes and smile exude the confidence of a pupil who has mastered all that his school has to offer him, a young man who is about to put his childhood behind him and start the rest of his life.

Yet Jacob will never watch the Philadelphia Phillies, his favorite baseball team, play a game on TV. There is no TV, or radio, or electricity, in his home. And even though Jacob has boyish good looks that would make many pre-teen girls weak in the knees, he will likely never go on a date to the movies or make-out in the backseat of a car.

Nevertheless, Jacob spits out state capitals faster than anyone in his class at Valley Brook School in Narvon, Pa. He boasts of hunting exploits of his dad and brothers, but only in the mild voice of a boy prohibited from gloating.

In his 8th grade year at his one-room Amish schoolhouse, suspender-clad Jacob sits near the door in the back left corner of his classroom, perhaps symbolizing his impending release into the outside world.

For the Amish, the "outside world" is isolated from a larger society that is obsessed with communication, technology, and self-advancement.

Jacob's "people" are the Amish, a group of Swiss-German Anabaptists who came to the United States in the 18th century to escape religious persecution and settled largely in rural parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. The Amish, led by Jakob Ammann, broke away from the Swiss Mennonites in the 16th century over issues related to church discipline.

Today, the second-largest population of Amish people in the country resides in the area of Lancaster, Pa. where Jacob is growing up.

Next year, Jacob will probably attend a trade school and work at his family's country store, Stoltzfus Discount Foods, quietly peddling flour, candies, and Christian-themed children's books. Although most boys his age have eight more years of education (and relative childhood) ahead of them, Jacob will be following a life path that is completely normal for his people, continuing an exploration of his chosen trade, and his faith.

Stoltzfus is one of 27 students at the Valley Brook Old Order Amish School, a place where the core values of his religion are reinforced daily.

The Amish create a world separate from the "English," Amish terminology for anyone outside their community. Proclaiming their faith in God means upholding the Biblical notion stated in II Corinthians that they "Be not yoked with unbelievers". While some sects of the Amish are often referred to as "New Order" for their acceptance of certain technological amenities-electricity, cars, telephones-the overall plain lifestyle and fragility of both groups is still paramount to their faith.

Valley Brook's Old Order designation means, among other expressions of material piety, that all eight grades of students use outhouses, wash their hands in a communal bucket, and dress similarly in plain clothes. The typical uniform is suspenders, black pants, and button down shirts for boys and long dresses and aprons for girls.

Nearly all of the children in the school share the surname Stoltzfus although they are not all related.

Carolyn Martin-Miller, the teacher at Valley Brook, runs a classroom in which discipline, productivity, and religiosity are paramount. But, as Martin-Miller acknowledges, Amish or not, kids deserve to be kids.

"The kids play baseball outside every day," she says with a slight smile, as if to explain the uncanny skill of Valley Brook's informal baseball team.

Martin-Miller's voice is soft, with a hint of a Pennsylvania Dutch accent. But Martin-Miller's dress-purple, with a checkered pattern-is different from the Amish girls in her class. Her dark brown hair is wound in a simple bun and is devoid of the rolled accents on the side which are standard for the girls she teaches.

Martin-Miller is Mennonite, another Anabaptist denomination. Like the Amish, Swiss-German Mennonites fled Europe to escape persecution and settled in Pennsylvania in the 18th and 19th centuries. (Over 25 Anabaptist groups exist in Lancaster County, including a number of conservative Mennonite groups, distinct from the larger Mennonite church, that are often mistaken for Amish.)

The students' artwork is displayed prominently throughout Martin-Miller's classroom, and their names proudly adorn the top of the chalkboard. Even though her job is to consistently discourage haughtiness in her students, Martin-Miller still manages to cultivate a quiet individuality and confidence in her students.

Aesthetically, Valley Brook is exactly how one might picture an Amish one-room schoolhouse. Its exterior is plain in every sense of the word, covered completely in white paint, and lacking even a sign to denote its name and purpose.

One warm October morning, rusty scooters in every color of the rainbow lined the fence bordering the schoolhouse. The students had docked them there haphazardly on their way to morning class. Behind the building, dozens of pigs from the neighboring pig farm trotted about and grazing while goats and chickens chased each other around an adjacent yard. A lonely row of seesaws comprised the only playground equipment. A worn-down baseball diamond sat adjacent to them in the school yard.

A denial of commercial progress breathed a deep calm over everything in sight.

Standing outside and waiting for entrance was a class of "English": college students from Saint Joseph's University sent to immerse themselves in the Amish culture.

Martin-Miller quietly exited the schoolhouse and ushered the visitors into the dark and hushed classroom. She told them to stand in front of the class at the blackboard, positioning them so that the kids wouldn't have to turn their heads to gawk.

But the faces that met the visitors expressed neither confusion nor judgment; they were not hateful, nor awed, nor probing.