Sensei Aishitemasu | Hidden Figures: Marva Collins #BlackHERstoryMonth 2/28 @SenseiAishitemasu | Uploaded February 2021 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
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Marva Collins (August 31, 1936 – June 24, 2015) was an American educator. Collins is best known for creating Westside Preparatory School, a private elementary school in the impoverished Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois which opened in 1975.

Collins was born in Monroeville, Alabama, and in 1957 she graduated from Clark College with a degree in secretarial science. She became a teacher when she couldn’t find work as a Black secretary. In 1959 she became a medical secretary at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, but she soon returned to teaching, joining the Chicago Public School system where she worked for fourteen years. She became frustrated with the classroom approach at the public schools, disliking the Board of Education’s teaching guide that drilled “skills” without teaching students how to think for themselves. Collins developed her own teaching methods, but the teachers’ union and public school bureaucracy were extremely hostile to her ideas and Collins faced increasing harassment in the school system until she resigned. She decided to take $5,000 from her teacher's retirement fund, and started a private school in her own home in 1975, naming it the Westside Preparatory School.

Collins developed high-level curriculum for students ages three to thirteen, and helped students integrate lessons from different works and different disciplines, attempting to help them “see the flow of knowledge.” Westside Prep became an educational and commercial success. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan sought to nominate Collins to the position of Secretary of Education due to the success of her teaching methods. However Collins took herself out of the running for the position, preferring to stay in the classroom in Chicago. In 1983, Reagan cited Collins work during an unveiling of a national program to combat adult illiteracy in the United States. By 1991, Mrs. Collins was training 1,000 teachers each year on her methods; in 1996, Collins was hired to supervise three Chicago public schools that had been placed on probation. She specifically requested the schools with the worst academic records and lowest parental involvement, and in only six months improved the rating of two of the schools by 85%.

Collins trained more than 100,000 teachers and received more than forty honorary degrees, and in 1982 she was honored as one of the Legendary Women of the World. Collins’ success attracted national attention, and she was profiled by 60 Minutes, Good Morning America, Time and Newsweek. She was also the subject of a 1981 television movie, 'The Marva Collins Story,' starring Cicely Tyson. In 2004, Collins received a National Humanities Medal, among many awards for her teaching and efforts at school reform. Collins and her daughter ran the school for more than 30 years until it closed in 2008 due to lack of sufficient enrollment and funding. However, schools worldwide continue to use Collins' teaching techniques, known as ‘the Marva Collins method.’

Collins passed away on June 24, 2015 at the age of 78.

#MarvaCollins #HiddenFigures

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Links:

'Marva Collins, Her Method, and Her ‘Philosophy for Living:'
theobjectivestandard.com/2018/08/marva-collins-her-method-and-her-philosophy-for-living

'Acclaimed educator Marva Collins, a native of Monroeville, dies at 78:'
al.com/news/mobile/2015/06/acclaimed_educator_marva_colli.html

'Marva Collins, Educator Who Aimed High for Poor, Black Students, Dies at 78:'
nytimes.com/2015/06/29/us/marva-collins-78-no-nonsense-educator-and-activist-dies.html

'Marva Collins, Renowned Educator, Dies At 78:'
chicagotribune.com/news/ct-marva-collins-obituary-met-20150625-story.html

Marva Collins Biography: notablebiographies.com/Co-Da/Collins-Marva.html

'This Famous Alpha Kappa Alpha Soror Was Featured In Prince’s “The Most Beautiful Girl In The World” Video:'
watchtheyard.com/back-in-the-day/marva-collins-alpha-kappa-alpha

Marva Collins (Wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marva_Collins