To Share Knowledge

I would like to honor Mrs. Marva Deloris Collins. She was born on August 31, 1936 in Monroeville, Alabama. Her father, Henry Knight, owned a funeral home and worked with cattle. Her mother was Bessie Knight. Marva grew up in Atmore, Alabama and went to a strict, one-room schoolhouse, elementary school. This experience influenced her later on in life. She went to Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia and there she graduated.

After college, she taught school for two years in Alabama. In 1959, she became a full time substitute teacherin an inner-city Chicago Public Schools for fourteen years. During that time, she met her husband, Clarence Collins, and married in 1960.

In 1975, Marva was dismayed at the low levels of learning, so she took $5,000 of her own teacher's retirement and started a private school. The school was located in the top floors of the Brownstone in the West Garfield Park neighborhood where she lived. The name of the school was called "Westside Preparatory School". It was a low-cost private school. She taught low-income black children who were labeled as being "learning disabled". She applied classical education to her teaching methods. Socratic method was in her particular use. Socratic method is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals. By asking and answering questions, it causes critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions. This way of teaching is named after the classical Greek philosopher, Socrates. It was introduced by him in Plato's Theaetetus. It is used to help students further their understanding.

What sparked my attention so much with Marva Collins, was a TV movie about her called "The Marva Collins Story". I was so captivated by her story, on how she cared about her students. They all in turn loved her. It is a gift to be able to teach someone something and that person learn from it.

I tried homeschooling my four children and it is no easy task. Seeing "The Marva Collins Story", helped me to keep trying. She doesn't even know me and she inspired me to not give up. I don't know how successful I was in being a teacher to my children, but I hope they know I tried very hard.

In 1982, Kevin Ross got to senior college not being able to read. He was a basketball player at Creighton University. Marva helped him learn how to read and he graduated in May, 1983. This was just one of the many students she helped.

President Ronald Reagan wanted to nominate Marva to Secretary of Education, but she took herself out of the running for the position. President George H. Bush also asked her to become Secretary of Education. She declined that time as well, saying she would rather just teach one student at a time.

In 1994, the singer, Prince, featured Marva in his music video for, "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World". He also donated $500,000 to the Westside Preparatory School Teacher Training Institute. This school was created to teach her teaching methods to other teachers.

Marva was hired to supervise three Chicago public schools in 1996, that was placed on probation. She also received a National Humanities Medal in 2004.

Marva's husband died in 1995. They had three children, Patrick, Eric and Cynthia. Marva and her daughter ran her school for more than thirty years until it had to close in 2008. There was a lack of sufficient enrollment and funding. On June 24, 2015, Marva Collins, died at the age of 78 while in hospice care.

Maybe not many of you have heard about this courageous, talented and loved woman, but I sure am glad she came in to my life and inspired me. There are probably thousands of students still alive today that had the privilege of sitting in her classroom. I'm not one of them who sat in her classroom, but I'm one who looks up to her, to not give up on your dreams.

Thank you, Mrs. Marva Collins!