Success! The Marva Collins Approach (1981)

A documentary on the teaching methods used by Marva Collins in her West Side Preparatory School in Chicago, Illinois, where phonics, classical literature, and a sincere love of children are emphasized. From Archive.org Shared for historical purposes. I do not own the rights.

Marva Delores Collins (née Knight; August 31, 1936 – June 24, 2015) was an American educator who started Westside Preparatory School in the impoverished Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago in 1975.

Dismayed at the low levels of learning that she felt some students were experiencing in particular areas, Collins took $5,000 (a large sum of money at that time) from her own teacher's retirement fund and started a private school in the top floors of the brownstone in the West Garfield Park neighborhood where she lived in 1975.

The school she started was called Westside Preparatory School. Westside Prep became an educational and commercial success.[6] Collins created her low-cost private school specifically for the purpose of teaching low income black children whom Collins felt that the Chicago Public School System had labeled as being learning disabled.Collins said she had the data to prove that students were teachable and were able to overcome obstacles of learning via her teaching methods, which she said eliminated behavioral issues and allowed students to flourish.

The one-room schoolhouse of her education influenced her methods. At home her father gave her assignments she believed built her confidence and gave her a sense of responsibility. She felt time spent with students was more valuable than distance-creating audio visual information.

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. - Wikipedia

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