Viva Vitality: Surviving the pandemic: Caught between two worlds

By Benita Peters on March 12, 2021.

“Mom, when can I go to one of those schools where the children each get their own little slate to write on?”

I was a small second grader and my school had a couple of large blackboards on the walls, but did not have small individual slates for each child. My mom smiled and shrugged off my question. I did not understand why until I was much older. I did not realize at the time that although I was growing up in a Mennonite community and I understood the Plautdietsch (Low German) that everyone spoke, there was a significant disconnect in education between the different types of Mennonite schools and churches.

My parents grew up in a school where each child had their own slate, which was so appealing to me as a seven-year-old, but their schools did not offer the regular elementary subjects that my school had. They also didn’t have the same grade system. The traditional Old Colony, Sommerfeld and Rheinland Schools have four main subjects, which are all religion-based and each ‘subject’ is also a ‘grade.’

Children start attending school at the age of six or seven and begin with Fibel, an old-fashioned reader for beginners in German. Once the child reads Fibel well enough, they advance to Catechism, a religious book in question-and-answer format that the child needs to memorize. Once the child has memorized the Catechism they advance to Testament, where they spend time reading the New Testament of the Bible and the last grade is referred to as Bible, where the child spends time reading the Old Testament.

Children in all grades also learn some basic math and neat penmanship which are practiced on the little individual slates. They also learn to sing German songs from the church hymnal in a traditional, lined-out hymnody style. Children stop attending school at age 13 or sooner, and that concludes their education. The goal is now to become hardworking farmers or hand labourers for the boys and hardworking home keepers for the women. They are ready and fully equipped to become successful members of their community and meet the expectations set by previous generations.

In a perfect world – in a perfect Low-German-speaking Mennonite world in Mexico – there shouldn’t be much requirement for knowledge of science, history or politics. For people whose only education has been this traditional conservative Mennonite school, it becomes challenging when they leave their communities to try to make a living elsewhere, or when a global pandemic strikes. I see so many Low-German-speaking families struggle to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There is so much misinformation being shared widely and it’s readily available to anyone with access to a cell phone with an Internet connection. With a lack of knowledge in science and biology and even human anatomy, it’s hard for them to discern the information they received, therefore they gravitate to ‘truth’ that makes sense to them with the knowledge they possess and the beliefs they hold.

The use of smartphones is also a novelty in the conservative Mennonite community. The conservative Mennonite church doesn’t allow their members to use technologies like TVs or computers in their homes. Smartphones conveniently help with the necessity to communicate with family members in the U.S. and Mexico, blurring the lines of the ‘technology ban.’

While it’s great that families are able to communicate and stay connected, we also see that many conspiracy theories and fear-mongering messages are shared rapidly through platforms like WhatsApp. The lack of knowledge in regard to education and how to discern between false and accurate information shared online is causing a lot of confusion among the Low-German-speaking communities.

This is not the reality for all Low-German-speaking Mennonites. There are many different groups that vary on a wide spectrum, from the largest group which is quite conservative, to families that are well integrated into regular modern Canadian society.

Needless to say, these are trying times for everyone, regardless of cultural, religious, ethnic or socioeconomic background. As we all do our best to navigate through restrictions right now it’s important to remember that there are no restrictions on finding grace in our hearts towards other people, and it’s always better to seek understanding rather than judgement.

Benita Peters is a Community Health Representative with Alberta Health Services

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