1936-
Educator

Miracle Worker.

Marva Collins, an inner-city elementary-school teacher from Chicago, became a national celebrity in the late 1970s and early 1980s when she founded Westside Preparatory School in Chicago. Under Collins's guidance, supposedly "unteachable" ghetto children turned into avid readers quoting Shakespeare and Socrates to media visitors, who quickly deemed her a "miracle worker" and "a national treasure."

Background.

Collins's own education began in rural Alabama, in all-black schools where "teachers were strict and strong; there was no foolishness." When she was denied access to her local library because of her race, she read the Farmer's Almanac, Bible stories, and any books her father could buy in Mobile. She graduated from the all-black Escambia County Training School and obtained her B.A. degree in secretarial sciences in 1957 from Clark College in Atlanta.

From Secretary to Teacher to Critic.

Collins moved to Chicago to work...