None of you has ever failed. School may have failed you. Goodbye to failure, children. Welcome to success. Marva Collins More Quotes by Marva Collins More Quotes From Marva Collins [Kid] never learned to read in kindergarten, first, and second, so in third grade he begins to be placed in the EMH or the learning-disabled rooms. Marva Collins kids rooms firsts I'm not one of those who say this is the way. I'm not that opinionated. I can only say this is my way. Even the $1,000 scholarship that my son could have gotten from the state of Illinois to go to college, we didn't want. I'd rather get out and work and have my children know that their money comes from their parents and we have to work for it. Marva Collins college children son Everything works when the teacher works. It's as easy as that, and as hard. Marva Collins teaching easy teacher One of the things that even wealthy children need is an education, and I think the problems I saw really have nothing to do with economics. So I was unhappy with what my own children were getting even in the better schools, and then I was seeing so many children here recruited for failure. Marva Collins children school thinking 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. Marva Collins brain children thinking That's how I try to think of education - a school is a miniature society where children learn to function in a real world. Marva Collins real children school Our children learn the phonetic method, which is why they're very good spellers, I suppose. Because rather than ABC or just saying a word, they'll have to go a as in apple and all the other a's there are in the English language. They learn that when they're four. Children all over America can tell you that a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y are vowels. But you ask them about that "sometimes y," and they can't tell you. Marva Collins apples children america I don't have to be accountable to some authority, which is why I don't take federal funds. I don't want anyone's monies unless they're monies without strings attached. It's not that we don't need them. Marva Collins strings-attached want needs I was very, very unhappy with even the so-called very elite schools. The one thing I've always done every day with my children is to watch what they do at school, and I was always a bit unhappy with the academic program. It was a kind of hit and miss. Marva Collins missing children school 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. Marva Collins jobs children thinking I think what we've done is given children a lot of things that they didn't ask for instead of what they do want. Marva Collins want children thinking Parents often brag about the amount of money spent per child, but I think, perhaps ironically, those great monies that are spent - I call it putting a band-aid on a hemorrhage. Marva Collins parent children thinking One night my son was downstairs studying, and he had been up so late all that week, and my husband said, "I feel so sorry for him." I said, "Look, if he's going to become a surgeon" - he is studying to be a doctor - "he's going to have his hard times. I feel sorry for him too, but if he lives in this world he's going to have more hard times. He's going to stay up some more nights." I think we can't shield them from the hard times, even though we'd like to. I say to the children that I teach and to my own - I can't test the ground for you and tell you that's a safe step there. Marva Collins husband sorry children