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Marva Collins: Heroine Educator Dead at 78

Posted by khalling 9 years, 10 months ago to Education
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If you have not read "Marva Collin's Way" I recommend it highly. Please check out interview with Marva Collins and her answers regarding Rand, from the link below:

"Q: How did you first discover Ayn Rand?

Collins: I think I’ve always been a reader—I read at least five to six hundred books a year, that’s not a difficult thing. I have read some of everybody.

Q: Do you have any major disagreements with her philosophy?

Collins: No, because I think she has a right to her philosophy. I think that most of what she talks about is compatible. We use it as a textbook here with our third-graders. We’re reading "The Comprachicos" now.

Q: Oh! How do the students react to Ayn Rand?

Collins: Well, that’s why its sad—if you talk to our students they know perhaps more about Ayn Rand than most grown-ups. I think, again, every child here is steeped in self, and doing it for themselves, and leaving no blank spaces and that kind of thing."

http://www.fullcontext.info/people/colli...

[edited to add link on MC's thoughts about Rand


All Comments

  • Posted by dbhalling 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thanks I will be interviewwed about the new book, Source of Economic Growth, on Friday 9:00 am KRDO.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    it is a travesty that we are raising and educating the nation's kids this way. -- j

    .
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  • Posted by ewv 9 years, 10 months ago
    "I read at least five to six hundred books a year, that’s not a difficult thing."

    How is that possible, let alone "not difficult", with any kind of serious books? That's an average of at least 1.5 books a day.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 9 years, 10 months ago
    Too bad. Another voice, setting aside excuses, that the socialized educational institution will not have to deal with any more.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 10 months ago
    Her flame should have ignited a forest fire of education. Instead, it has dwindled out like a wet campfire. It is a testament to the degradation of our education systems that teachers such as her were not used as a national model for the improvement of education nation-wide.
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Thanks for the link. Can anyone today imagine third graders reading The Comprachicos? Contrast her approach with Dewey's "I believe that we violate the child's nature and render difficult the best ethical results, by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc., out of relation to this social life.
    I believe, therefore, that the true centre of correlation of the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child's own social activities" and ask yourself in which ones classroom you'd want to enroll your children.
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  • Posted by wiggys 9 years, 10 months ago
    she did wonderful work, saw a documentary about her after i red marvas way. excellent read.
    pity 0 wasn't one of her students. she unfortunately did not have enough influence on people who claim to be teachers.
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  • Posted by $ minniepuck 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Wow. I bet she didn't care what grade level the books were for, either. A fourth grade text could work for someone in second grade, for example. Of course, these levels are set by the textbook companies like Pearson in accordance to the curriculum of the market they want to target--curriculum, which I'm very happy to see, is what Ms. Collins paid very careful attention to. I love that she incorporated other "real-world" books, too. What drives me crazy is when a person says something is too advanced for a child. That can be true, but only to a certain degree. I really think that if you tell a kid that they are capable of something, they will rise to the occasion.
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  • Posted by $ minniepuck 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Amazing! I just got done with Dale's book, so I am moving hers to be my next non-fiction read.
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  • Posted by 9 years, 10 months ago in reply to this comment.
    my favorite MC story is this. she was just starting her school. She waited until the end of the school year and then went around to all the local elementary schools and dumpster dived looking for textbooks they weren't going to use the next year. Those were some of her teaching materials the first few years
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 9 years, 10 months ago
    If we lived in a country dominated by reason, Marva Collins educational ideas would have been, and deserved to be, the principles by which our children are educated.
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  • Posted by $ minniepuck 9 years, 10 months ago
    "...Ms. Collins was stung by accusations that she was not a certified teacher..." As if that is a requirement to be a good educator. It hardly is. I'll add her book to my reading list; I'm always interested to learn more about education. Thank you.
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