THE SPRINGER MEMORIAL SCHOOL is alive with the buzz of school life when the WEEKEND NATION enters its gates on Tuesday afternoon.
Freed from exams, girls are milling around in the school yard, making it a veritable sea of the school's distinctive blue plaid. A few student drummers are practising in the square and the rhythmic thud of percussion rises above the sounds of laughter and chatter floating in the air.
Inside the principal's office, every surface is packed with sporting and cultural trophies, report books and brightly-coloured decorations for the upcoming graduation. Students and teachers pop in and out in a steady stream.
However, amidst all this hustle and bustle, behind the desk is an oasis of calm – principal Joan Blackett, cool and composed as ever even as she copes with the hectic end-of-year schedule.
This is her last week with her girls at the school, as she will be retiring in August, after a stalwart 42 years in the teaching service.
"If I had to do it again, I would do it [teaching] again," she says with conviction, beaming with contentment.
This is even though she admits teaching was something she sort of fell into.
"I'm not sure if I always wanted to teach, but having got into teaching, I continued," she says matter-of-factly.
She had some precedent in the profession as she had an aunt who taught and an uncle, Dr Alfred Blackett, who opened his own school here, the Regal School.
He later went on to be a principal at the St Vincent Grammar School and the Antigua Grammar School.
Ironically though, even with this background of educators, Blackett's own father was not enthusiastic about the idea of educating her.
"My father, I don't think he ever really wanted me to go to school, because he was very religious and marriage and having children was seen as the way for me to go," she says.
With a twinkle in her eye and a chuckle, Blackett, the mother of a 17 year-old son, adds: "I always tell people it's a good thing I went into teaching because I've never been married!"
It was another younger uncle who took the initiative to send her to school – first the Broomes Memorial School (founded by Charles F. Broome) and then Co-operative High.
After leaving school, she started teaching at the St Leonard's Girls' Secondary School, where she spent 15 years before moving to Springer Memorial to become head of the general studies department.
She spent ten years at Springer before moving to the just-opened Deighton Griffith Secondary School to become deputy principal. However, two years later she returned to Springer to make her mark as principal.
When she took over leadership of the school, the reputation of Springer and its students was less than sterling, which Blackett acknowledges, saying: "A number of things people talked about concerning the Springer Memorial School were negative, about the image and how our studentscarried themselves."
Blackett set about to change the school's image in the public eye, starting with something basic yet in her opinion, vital – how the girls wore their uniform.
"If you do not look good, you behave badly," says Blackett with a note of steel in her voice.
Under Blackett's firm guidance, the image of the students underwent a dramatic transformaton, with skirt lengths plummeting to below the knee from the heights many used to be before.
"If I said a child had to wear the uniform properly, then they had to wear it properly. A uniform is just that – I couldn't have some skirts short and some long. I said I wanted them two inches below the knee," she says in a tone that clearly brooks no opposition, even taken with her kindly and smiling face.
She said she got very little opposition to her strict terms, primarily because parents realised she had the children's best interest at heart. Speaking with her, one comes to realise how deeply she cares for her students.
"As another colleague of mine said 'you don't have to go home, but you have to go to school'. We have to make sure then, that we are there for them," she says.
With a laugh, she says that some people have even said that "we pamper the children at Springer Memorial", but she does not care about that, only about giving total encouragement to her students to excel in whatever endeavour they pursue.
"I believe in mixed ability and I believe God has blessed us in various ways with various talents. That is what has made us a good school. I will never say that a person cannot achieve. We try our best to encourage each child and let her know we believe in her," says Blackett with conviction.
It is this spirit of belief which infuses the staff and student body and has led the school to become an athletic powerhouse, taking the inter-school sports title a record seven times.
Blackett's students have reciprocated her love in kind. Recalling a conversation with one of her students earlier that week, she says: "I remember a little girl saying: 'Ma'am stay until you're old and we'll look after you'."
However, though Blackett is leaving and her students will mourn, she is not sad about going.
"When you have done what you are supposed to do to the best of your ability, then you can leave with a clear conscience. I have enjoyed every minute of my teaching and I am satisfied."
