Education

The Hutterites expend much effort on formal education for their children. At the movement’s beginnings in the sixteenth century, instruction was important to a largely illiterate society because members of the community needed to read the Scriptures and be able to give an account of their faith. Today kindergartens, German-and English-language schools, and Sunday schools are all part of the training process. Three- to five-year-old children attend the Klein-Schul, or kindergarten. The small building in which it is housed is frequently placed close to the kitchen and has several rooms and in many cases a fenced playground with slides and sandboxes. Several of the older women in the colony supervise it, each taking responsibility for a couple of days a week. For children to go at an early age from a fairly unrestricted existence to the kindergarten, where more discipline and obedience is expected, is a major change. They arrive at around 7 or 7:30 in the morning, before breakfast, and stay until 3 in the afternoon. Two meals are eaten at school, with prayers recited before and after. Kindergartens vary from one leut to another: those of the Lehrerleut are somewhat more strict, while the Schmiedeleut allow more flexibility. Facilities are generally modern, but the activities and playthings provided differ widely. Attendance ranges from eight to twelve months a year.

At about the age of five, children enter the Gross-Schul, or German-language school. It is taught by a married man selected by the colony. The school mother may be either the teacher’s wife or another older woman. Newer colonies have special rooms in the schoolhouse for the German school, but children generally attend before and after the English-language school and sometimes on Saturday. They learn to read the medieval German script, practise writing, and memorize prayers, Bible stories, the catechism, and some Hutterite history. The primary purpose is to teach them obedience and Hutterite values. The teacher, with an assistant, also supervises all meals, which children aged between five and fourteen eat in a separate room, often adjacent to the adult dining room. Boys and girls sit separately, and they are arranged at the table by age. The teacher instructs the children in table manners and general deportment and helps the younger ones to serve themselves.

In the English-language school, children aged six to fourteen follow the provincial curriculum under a regular teacher with academic credentials who is hired and paid by the local school board. Colonies used to supply a small house for the teacher and his or her family, but most teachers now live in the nearby town and commute to school. Although they are free to live their own lives, they are expected not to influence the children through television, radio, or magazines. The minister outlines the moral boundaries to be observed and monitors the school’s impact on the children. They start attending Sunday school, which is held every Sunday afternoon throughout the year, when they begin their English-language schooling, and continue until they are baptized. Taught by the German-language teacher, Sunday school incorporates singing, recitation, and highlights of the morning’s sermon. As an extension of the German-language school, it forms part of the process of inculcating the elements of the Hutterite faith.

The socialization of children takes place under the supervision of an adult: the German-language teacher, a parent, or a work supervisor. Childhood comes to an end at the fifteenth birthday, when young Hutterites leave the children’s dining room and enter the adult one. However, they are still clearly at the lower end of the hierarchy, a long way from adult authority. Further, unbaptized youth are not considered full members of the colony. Such rigorous communal training might be expected to result in different personality development from that of other children. A study conducted in 1978 by Shirin and Eduard Schluderman found that positive attitudes towards Hutterite ways increased with age. Hutterite children were found to be more sober, sensitive, and timid than other North American children. The boys were not interested in intellectual tasks and were less self-assured, while girls were more circumspect and introspective. Thus socialization has a distinctive influence in line with Hutterite ideals.

Though Hutterites spend much time and effort instructing their young during the early years of life, such education usually ends at the age of fifteen and with the elementary level of schooling. It is considered important to be able to read and write and understand arithmetic in order to function well in agricultural pursuits, but Hutterites frown on higher education. Few go on to high school and fewer still to university, except for those trained to teach in the colonies. The German-language school is designed to instruct children in reading the Scriptures and understanding the Hutterite heritage, while the English-language school introduces them to that language and to a basic knowledge about the society around them. Because they do not have access to radio, television, magazines, newspapers, and most books, their general knowledge and conceptual abilities are limited. A practical people, Hutterites are suspicious of worldly philosophies and concepts.