Marva Collins Quotes

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.

Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.

Excellence is not an act but a habit. The things you do the most are the things you will do best.

When someone is taught the joy of learning, it becomes a life-long process that never stops, a process that creates a logical individual. That is the challenge and joy of teaching.

Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed.

Success doesn't come to you, you go to it.

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.

Students do not need to be labeled or measured any more than they are. They don't need more Federal funds, grants, and gimmicks. What they need from us is common sense, dedication, and bright, energetic teachers who believe that all children are achievers and who take personally the failure of any one child.

I'm a teacher. A teacher is someone who leads. There is no magic here. I do not walk on water. I do not part the sea. I just love children.

Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail.

Mr. Meant-to has a friend, his name is Didn't-Do. Have you met them? They live together in a house called Never-Win. And I am told that it is haunted by the Ghost of Might-have-Been.

What all good teachers have in common, however, is that they set high standards for their students and do not settle for anything less.

If you don't give anything, don't expect anything. Success is not coming to you, you must come to it.

The more monies we spend, the less children learn; because the more machines we have there, the more gadgets, the more gimmicks, the less children have to really think - the less they have to use their innate abilities, their curiosity, their brains.

If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything.

Kids don't fail. Teachers fail, school systems fail. The people who teach children that they are failures, they are the problem.

People have to live by rules in the world. Why do we pretend in school that they don't?

Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have.

We've been brainwashed into thinking that it takes more monies than it actually does to educate children. That's been one of the brainwash jobs.

Before I can effectively discipline students, I have to earn their friendship and respect.

An error means a child needs help, not a reprimand or ridicule for doing something wrong.

There is a lot of money to be made from miseducation, from the easy to read easy to learn textbooks, workbooks, teacher manuals, educational games and visual aids. The textbook business is more than a billion-dollar-a-year industry and some of its biggest profits come from 'audio-visual aids' - flash cards, tape cassettes, and filmstrips. No wonder the education industry encourages schools to focus on surface education.

Readers are leaders. Thinkers succeed.

A person cannot all of a sudden become good at what they do just by switching streams.

The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior.