Miss Mason and the Motessori method

Charlotte Mason was orphaned at 16. She never married and never had any kids, but spent her life working with children. CM devoted everything she had to children. I hate the word "method" because it is so opposite of organic, but CM developed a philosophy that is called the Charlotte Mason method of learning. It is what's used in the Montessori schools today. And it is brilliant.
Miss Mason shared the belief that "children are persons who should be treated as individuals as they are introduced to the variety and richness of the world in which they live." It seems simple and and obvious.
Try an experiment: Take a small child on your knee. Respect him. Do not see him as something to mold, prune, or form. This is an individual who thinks, acts, and feels.
We are told by many in our generation that this small child is a possession.
What sort of person is it whom we are holding? Maybe vigorous and healthy, or malnourished and dejected? His mind may be alert or dull and neglected. Is he bored by sawdustlike religious slogans or has he been warmed at the flame of the Shepherd who has cared for him? We can only love him. We cannot own him, he is not ours.
One of the main selling points for homeschooling, in our family, is the views of children by the faculty of an institutional school. Children are not dependant on us(adults) to brainwash them into thinking any arbitrary act that we deem useful.
We think this is extremely healthy and have implemented it in our home. It works wonderfully at the Montessori schools. The children at those schools are well behaved, well versed, and exposed to quality books, games, and school work.
One of the main points that Charlotte Mason makes is to let good behaviour and good work be its own reward. Also, never to use writing, reading, or learning as a punishment or something to "get through" to go do the fun stuff.
I didn't know this in the beginning. We used stickers. When Thing 1,2, or 3 was good or did good work they got a sticker. Whoever got the most stickers got a prize out of the Good Job Bucket. We had 2 problems with this... not all my kids are on the same level behaviourally. They are different ages. Also, they have different special needs. Thing 2 has to work much, much harder to not have a temper tantrum than the other kids. So do I give him 2 stickers for not freaking out at lunchtime? It got too hard to decide. The other problem was that I did not like giving a "prize" for a kid to play with in front of the other two. It just felt wrong and it taught them that learning was a competition and that good behaviour is not worth doing unless a reward is offered. My kids even started to remind me to put a sticker on when they behaved. I knew that this was not how I wanted to parent. i did it because it was done to me at school. Now, knowing what I know, I don't have my boys participate in anything like that. They automatically get a reward from me, just for being my kids.
As an adult, living in organic church life, we would never do something like that to each other. But because kids are looked at differently, our culture uses that system. I talked to a woman recently that had this happen in her daughter's classroom. 8 kids were given special treats by the substitute because they did what the sub wanted. The woman(my friend) brought in treats for everyone to her daughter's class. The sub said "You are undermining what I am trying to do here!" and my friend replied, "Well, you are undermining what I am doing at home." My friend now homeschools her daughter.
There are a lot of things about institutions that disgust me. This system of having a flawed human decide which humans will be rewarded and which won't is one of them. The only institution that does not use this system is, like I said, the Montessori school.
I am in my opinionated blog so I feel safe in writing this. I know that there are a lot of people who will disagree with me and I appreciate that we are not all the same. I enjoy differences in my friends and family's point of views and love and value them just as much as ever. If you are reading this a don't agree, it's okay with me. I just really, really, wanted to get this out. Sometimes a blog will sit in my heart eating away at me until I finally sit down to type it. This is one of those.
I want to write just a little more about the philosophy that's developed in our house over the years... I am fascinated with curriculum, books, learning styles, and so on. I spend hours upon hours writing year long plans for our homeschool. What I am not good at is "teaching." My MIL is a teacher and has shared with me some of the things they do in her classroom. She has taught for 50 year and has a Master's degree in the profession. For all that, she is well read in twaddle(twaddle is the stuff the schools are giving to kids these days) and she knows how to organize and teach a classroom. When it comes to homeschooling and what we do, her degree doesn't matter. If anything, I have found that her degree works against her. Homeschooling isn't about teaching kids. In our house homeschooling is following them on their learning journey and showing them where to find what they need. When I try to teach them something that is of no interest to them, they forget it. We are very relaxed in our school and because of this I no longer have to fight with the kids to do school. They do far more than I ever could have "made" them. It's because we began treating them like equal members of the family. It's very similar to the belief that christians can't know what to do without a pastor. So far, we are growing and experiencing Christ more than we did before when we had the 'leader.'
Hopefully this will give a little glimpse into how parenting/learning can work without the typical reward/punishment chart system. I am also very excited to write about Charlotte Mason. I whole heartedly agree with her life's work and will take every opportunity to write about her and pass on the info that's been so useful to me.
If you read this and don't agree, leave a comment. I love to hear opinions and to know what other moms and dads do that work for them.
In either case, thanks for reading!
Love,
Jackie