Blog 3 Marva Collins——An extraordinary woman

Last week, we talked about gender roles in our society, so today I would like to introduce an extraordinary woman who has played an important role in education development.

Marva Collins was born in Alabama in the 1930s when there was a great deal of discrimination. Working so hard, she conquered the difficulties and became a decent secretary. However, as time passed, she found that her real passion was in teaching. After two years’ night-school study, she went to Chicago and became a qualified teacher. At first, to her great disappointment, students there were involved in crimes and drugs and the whole society was in great disorder. Being so confident and positive, Marva Collins believed that things were going to be different.

On the first day of her class, she told the so called “unteachable” students that they were going to make a great difference and she repeated that belief again and again to encourage all her students. She appreciated them and gave them high expectations to rebuild their confidence. What was more, she tried to cultivate the strength by using positive ways in teaching. For instance, when the students misbehaved, what they had to do was to write 100 reasons why they were too wonderful to do what they had done. In addition, the reasons had to be in alpha order which was more challenging. Subsequently, the simple reason for the students being obedient was that they were tired of telling her how wonderful they were. It may sound ridiculous but it really worked at that specific time for those students who had almost lost their self-esteems before receiving the support from Marva Collins.

Marva Collins applied her real love and patience in helping the students back on track and what she did laid the foundation of positive teaching which benefited a splendid array of students afterwards.

When she was interviewed, Marva Collins said that her real passion was in teaching and that was the only reason for her to be persistent all the way. It impressed me most and I began to realize that it is our passion that determines what we can achieve, far more than our ability itself.

From my perspective, both men and women can do quite well as long as they are doing what they really want to do. I hope that all of us can make great achievements in the suitable fields and learn to live a positive life as well.