20407: JHudicourt: Death of Jacqueline Turian Cardozo (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JHUDICOURTB@aol.com

Haitian educator Jacqueline Turian Cardozo died this week-end after a very
long illness.   She was a pioneer in the field of preschool education in Haiti.
 Many Haitian families will remember her as the principal of the very large
"Kindergarden" on Impasse Lavaud informally known as "Kay Turian" and as the
author of the popular Haitian basal reading series Ti Malice aux Pays des
Lettres.
Jacqueline was the daughter of the Haitian educator Maud Hudicourt Turian
Devarieux who ran a school and boarding school on Chemin des Dalles during the
1930's and 1940's which served   mainly the provincial bourgeoisie who wanted to
send their children to Port-au-Prince for their education.   When Jacqueline
returned from studying education in Europe in the late forties, she had
learned about the new ideas of preschool education from Maria Montessori and opened
the first "playful" pre-school in Haiti at her mother's school.   She later
moved to Impasse Lavaud where her school became one of the most important
pre-school programs in Haiti.   She was an innovator who wrote the Ti Malice reading
series because she felt that French reading books included too much
vocabulary that the Haitian children did not understand.   She constantly researched
new methodologies and brought   in an audio-visual   French as a second language
program into her pre-school, and trained her staff in the use of Cuisenaire
rods for Mathematics.   Every year the school's Carnaval celebration was a
major artistic production with children dressed for a historical or folkloric
theme . Jacqueline was concerned that the vast majority of her clientele saw
pre-school mainly as a preparation for admission into the major Catholic schools of
Port-au-Prince and therefore placed too much importance on the learning of
French and the acquisition of reading skills in pre-school. Jacqueline was an
advisor to the Haitian government during the Bernard education reform of
1978-1980.   She published a Creole version of TiMalis following the" adoption" of
Creole as the language of primary education in Haiti.
The Impasse Lavaud school is still functioning under the direction of her
daughter Raphaelle Cardozo Baker who also opened a pre-school in Fermathe and
runs the summer day-camp Satigny in Fermathe.   Her sons Patrick and Jean-Richard
Cardozo are in the field of information technology.
Thousands of Haitians will remember attending their first school Kay Turian
on Impasse Lavaud and will remember their first pink shirt and navy blue
pants/skirt uniform.   They hopefully will also remember a joyful pre-school
experience for which Jacqueline was responsible.
My first work experience was as a substitute teacher in the school in the
Spring of 1978, and my best memories of that work experience are my conversations
with my cousin Jacqueline about the constraints of education in Haiti.   She
was a great lady, a hard worker, and a good soul.