How Did Marva Collins Become Successful

A successful teacher is determined by their philosophy of education. Throughout many decades and eras, teachers have established their own philosophy in the education plans that they implement in their classrooms to make the students live up to their fullest potential. Marva Collins, a Chicagoan who was one of the most inspirational and influential teachers around, established her own philosophy of education that impacted children in such a tremendous way that she soon became famous for her style of teaching. Marva Collins view of education seems polarized compared to her fellow colleagues she used to work with, but that is what made her so successful in the education world. She believed that every student she encountered could be made successful,

Analysis Marva Collins role as a teacher is much more than standing in front of the class teaching standard lessons that she needed to follow. Instead, she took teaching into her own hands and decided what students were missing in the standard education lessons, and then expanded on them in greater depth for her students to understand. In the beginning of the book, Marva Collins Way, she was working as a teacher in a public school in Chicago, and she believed the main goal of the teacher was to teach “common sense” (Collins, 5). Many times in education, the role of the teacher seems to be that they must be the facilitator of knowledge from a textual standpoint, but they lose sight of teaching the underlying meaning of the lessons, which is common sense. Civia Tamarkin, the co-writer of Marva Collins Way¸ saw Marva’s teachings first hand in the classroom and came to realization that Marva Collins attitude towards teaching is what made children learn (Collins, 26). Marva Collins knew that her role as a teacher was to facilitate a classroom that motivates her students to strive for success, and one of the motivators towards their success was her attitude towards them. The role of a teacher is to motivate students in the classroom so that they feel confident, loved,

Marva worked at a public school in Chicago that did not believe in her role as a teacher, but that made Marva strive harder to make her students successful. Marva stated in her book, “As a teacher I now try to teach children how to deal with life.” (Collins, 48) Marva believed her role as a teacher was to teach students (one’s often below grade level) to be successful in life, and a way to be successful was to get a good education. She often worked with underprivileged students in the Chicagoland area, and Marva stated in her book, “Naturally my optimal goal was to get children in this class to see intrinsic value of education.” (Collins, 68) At the public school Delano, Marva was transferred as a teacher and her students became extremely upset with the situation of getting a new teacher. Instead of being frustrated and upset with her students she stated, “Sometimes things happen in life that we can’t do anything about. We don’t let them get us down, do we? We go on the best we can, making something of our lives.” (Collins, 75) Marva never believed in sulking and wallowing in her own self pity and she often rubbed those values onto her students. Marva always gave optimistic praises to her students so that they