EVERYONE knows (or should know) who Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall and Malcom X are. So I decided that for Black history month I'd talk about some other important people in our history. This is something I want to do all year, actually. When I have time, I'll try to randomly write a little bit of info about someone who may not be well known, but contributed greatly to society.
Marva Collins. I first heard her name last semester when my favorite professor was doing an exam review. Our class had recently had an exam in another class. Half of us didn't do too well and were in return belittled and ridiculed by the main professor of that class. So we sit there waiting to get started on the review for this next exam. He started by calling out the only 3 Black people in our class and asking if we knew who Marva Collins was. We figured she must be Black, but that was about it. He goes on to tell us about her. She grew up in Alabama, graduated from Clark Atlanta University, and taught in Alabama for a couple of years. Then she moved to Chicago. She was disappointed in the school at which she worked (and in the education her own children were receiving). Marva decided that she would open her own school. The first students she had were labeled troublemakers, learning disabled, and one was even called "borderline retarded." After a year, these children's grades were highly improved, showing that the labels they were given were incorrect. Our professor told us that we shouldn't listen to the person telling us that our veterinary careers were over. We may have been labeled one way, but he believes in us and knows we all will succeed.
For more on Marva Collins, check out her biography here.
No comments:
Post a Comment