In 1975, extraordinary educator Marva Nettles Collins (1936–2015) made a bold decision that changed countless lives. After 14 years of teaching, she was told by her principal that she needed to remember her students were not her children.

Marva disagreed—with conviction. To her, every child mattered as if they were her own. She resigned and used her pension to found an independent school on Chicago’s West Side, serving children who had been dismissed as “unteachable” and “unreachable.”

“Excellence is not an act but a habit,” she explained. “The things you do the most are the things you do the best.”

Collins refused to let her students fail. She believed in their brilliance and helped them find joy in learning—and in themselves. With love and high expectations, she created an interdisciplinary curriculum blending phonics, classical literature, memorization, thinking, reading aloud, and even foreign languages.

She made learning an adventure—transforming low expectations into soaring potential.

“Children do not fail. We, as a society, fail them,” she taught.

With passion and purpose, she nurtured the flame of confidence in her students. Their stories of success reached far and wide. Collins was profiled on 60 Minutes in 1975 and again in 1995. In 1981, Cicely Tyson portrayed her in a powerful made-for-TV movie that carried her message to a national audience.

“Character is what you know you are, not what others think you have,” she said.

Marva Collins showed that once children learn how to learn, the possibilities become infinite. “The essence of teaching,” she said, “is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another.”

She believed in dreams. She believed in heart. She believed in the sacred uniqueness of every child.