In Chicago, 196 public schools are on probation and their administrators are likely to be replaced if improvements aren't made soon. But if Marva Collins has her way, three of those schools, now her responsibility, will be "models for the nation" by the end of next year.
Collins usually gets her way. The founder and principal of the Westside Preparatory School in Chicago has always expected the most of even the lowest achieving students and is unabashedly proud that every student who attended a school using the Marva Collins Method has gone on to college.
"It's all about expectations," Collins told a receptive audience during the Opening General Session at ASCD's 52nd Annual Conference. "And I expect that all my children should do well."
Collins has equally high expectations of herself and her colleagues. "I don't think there's a child in the world I cannot reach," she declared, and she called on all teachers to also make—and believe—that claim.
Don't blame students for poor academic achievement, Collins said. Blame, instead, poor teaching. "We all talk about learning disabilities," she said. "How many of us are willing to stand up and admit that we have a teaching inability?"
Collins also rejected the argument that without parental support children simply can't succeed. "I think it's wonderful to have parental support," she said, but in its absence, teachers must hold themselves responsible for each child's learning. "We're a country of finger pointers," she said, and that has to end.
Collins argued that today's disadvantaged children need more teachers like those she had as a child growing up in Alabama, where poverty and discrimination might have left crippling scars had teachers taken a defeatist attitude. "But I had teachers who didn't give us the option to fail," Collins recalled. Her teachers always expected Collins to do great things.
Collins didn't disappoint her teachers. Thousands of students are taught in schools using the Marva Collins Method and learn to read the classics, recite poetry, and articulate their points of view. "We always hear the words I think' in our schools," said Collins.
Collins encouraged her audience to change the way they "see the problem," and to consider how to improve their teaching so all students can achieve. Do it for the children, Collins implored her audience. "Children," she said, "are begging for someone to show them the way."