Marlene starts all over with children

MARLENE AND CYRIL BLANCHFIELD had it all worked out. Their return to Trinidad and settling in Freeport after living out of suitcases and travelling the world would be the precursor to a long-awaited, quiet and enjoyable retirement. Cyril had completed his service as Consulate General in Toronto, Canada, to round off 30 years spent as a foreign diplomat. He had served in the USA, Canada, Belgium, Africa and Jamaica. He was also permanent secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the PNM government. On his return home in 2002, Cyril found out that he had cancer. “After all these years of adjustment you come and get this news and you have one year,” Marlene sobbed. Cyril passed away last year. For 37 years, from the moment she said “I do” to her husband in 1966, Marlene had been his constant support, patronising clubs for wives of diplomats as well as caring for their two children and her household. Cyril saw himself as a facilitator. “He didn’t see himself as above the masses, but was there to help, if he could, regardless of background,” she said. Like him, she “learned humility” from her many travels.

While in Ethiopia, Marlene never imagined having to undergo food rationing, militia searches at night and being in fear for her life. “There was a revolution. That was when they overthrew Haile Selassie. There were curfews, roadblocks and a lot of restrictions. I was scared. There was shooting outside, and we were stopped and searched by the militia; you were threatened all the time,” Marlene paused, then went on: “People (the world over) don’t realise that you should have peace wherever you go. There were two sides to the coin — there were the luncheons and cocktails, but we were in an unstable political climate and you have everything that comes with it.” At that time, their sons Mark and John were very young. “Food was scarce, you weren’t sure as to when you’d get a flight out of the country. There was a weight limit on the luggage you could take with you. You had to study food first for the children. I remember opening up a bag of flour we had saved up, and only ‘butterflies’ flew out. But I couldn’t throw that away. I sifted it and prepared it for my family.

“I learned humility because I realised that what I had, everybody else didn’t have. My family wasn’t rich but I came from a comfortable background. We take health care and family safety for granted. “I was an extremely fortunate woman because I had the opportunity to travel, broaden my horizons, lose egos, lose all the ideals concerning how life should be, and accept reality — how life is at the present time.” A former liaison officer with the Family Planning Association, Marlene used her time, while in Canada, to go back to school. She studied Early Childhood Care and completed an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts. In the late 1980s, she established her own pre-school in her hometown of San Juan. It was called The Adventure Place, since Marlene held the belief that the acquisition of knowledge is an adventure. “When I started, I promised I would never discriminate,” she said, after returning from Europe where, she observed, prejudice existed. “People have a lot of pre-conceived notions of children and their backgrounds, but it is not the background, but the discipline.”

Marlene is now head teacher at the Cotton Tree Foundation Pre-school in St Ann’s. So enthused by her students, she leaves her Freeport home as early as 6 am to get to school on time. She teaches children between ages three and five. “This is a thankless job,” she started off. “These are the formative years. A child’s foundation is important.” She said a keen sense of observation of the strengths and weaknesses of a child is necessary to determine the level of the child. “At this level, you need to be extremely patient. Children age chronologically; each responds at a different conceptual level, so you have to know how to programme for them.” She said she believed in teaching children within a stress-free environment. At the school they are taught Science, Math and Art. “We don’t believe in learning by rote. Children must have a proper grasp of what they are learning. For example, take the sentence — Jack sat on the mat. They must be able to use ‘sat’ in another sentence, learning the root words and building on them.”

In her class, Marlene has incorporated simple and innovative ways of learning such as the tying of shoe laces with the aid of a string and a hole-punched cover of a shoe box. She got the idea from the ‘shoelace box’ story. Children are also taught how to button their shirts from a shirt front cut-out stapled onto a wooden frame. “My satisfaction is when the children grasp concepts thought,” she said. As a widow, Marlene is learning how to adjust to her circumstances. She still intends to pursue her hobbies picked up in Canada. “I’ll continue to dabble with my mosaic and stained glass if I live long enough. There are things people like to do and wish to do, but if they get the opportunity to do it is an absolutely different matter. I have learned that regardless of how many plans I make, the outcome depends on a higher order — that much I learned in life.”