"Let's not cry about what's wrong with this world," Marva told them. "Complaining isn't going to change things. Learn all you can so you will become the doctors, the lawyers, the politicians, and the thinkers. Then you can change things yourself."
It had been a wonderful year for the children. They had achieved in our one-room school as they could not have in schools with large budges, resource centers, and all sorts of teaching aids and audio-visual equipment. The most important reason was that their attitude about school had changed.
If you have a positive attitude about yourself, then no one can put you down for who you are or where you live.
The concept of self-determination goes hand in hand with self-discipline. The general rule in my class was that behavior contributing to the learning process or benefiting another child was acceptable. Anything that took away another child's right to learn was not.
Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their minds. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another. A discussion of Little Women included everything from a lesson on the Civil War to an explanation of the allegory in The Pilgrim's Progress, which the little women in Alcott's novel loved to act out. When the children studied Aristotle, they learned the principles of logical thinking. Plato's Reppublic led to de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, which led to a discussion of different political systems, which brought in Orwell's Animal farm, which touched off a discussion of Machiavelli, which led to a look at Chicago's city council.
The great books were their greatest teacher. These books are over the head of the student reader; that is the purpose of reading them. We read to stretch the mind, to seek, to strive, to wonder, and then reread. The great books are great teachers because they demand the attention of the reader.
Ovan är några stycken från andra halva av boken "Marva Collin's way".
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