Hard road leads Uncle Joe back to the classroom

Published: 22 November 2009
By: Robin Williams

Giving back: Uncle Joe Kirk is inspiring indigenous, as well as non-indigenous, young people to take advantage of opportunities in education

 

 

IN his own words Joe Kirk had a rough and tough upbringing but he's not one to dwell on the negatives of life.

This quietly spoken man talks about his "breaks" in life and how they eventually led to his work with young indigenous students in Brisbane Catholic schools, all the while dismissing his own quite obvious intelligence.

He is respectfully referred to as Uncle Joe by both the indigenous and non-indigenous community in Brisbane, a title given to elders as a sign of respect.

He is one of Brisbane's Turrbal elders but was in fact born and raised in Cherbourg.

"I was born in Cherbourg an the 3rd of March, 1945, and it was a really rough and tough upbringing," he said.

"When people ask me about my younger life I always say that even though we had Mum and Dad we were raised by the Queensland Government because there were do's and don'ts on a community reserve. You weren't allowed to do certain things."

Joe said his first opportunity, sadly, came with the death of his mother when he was 15.

"My brother came and took me under his wing as my caretaker and I was signed over to him from the Government's point of view.

"He was the Aboriginal Inland Mission pastor at the time and was the pastor of Caroona Mission (near Gunnedah) in NSW."

Joe said touring NSW with his brother was an eye opener and, despite efforts to return him to school, he refused to go.

He found work as a handyman on a sheep station before his brother was sent to Raymond Terrace, a move that saw Joe being delivered his second "break" in life.

"There wasn't a great opportunity in Raymond Terrace so I ended up moving into a little suburb called Sandgate in Newcastle with an old couple, a Mr and Mrs Tollis, and I got a job in a store."

That comment is delivered with considerable pride and Uncle Joe said the place was a department store in Hunter Street, Newcastle, similar to present day Myers.

He stayed in the job for about a year until his brother was called back to Cherbourg.

"I didn't really want to go back to Cherbourg because I knew that I was going to be under the superintendent again, but that was a misunderstanding on my part, (because) when we got back to Cherbourg I wasn't under control of the Government; I was still under control of my brother.

"I was still under the Act but my brother had full control of me and I didn't go back and live on Cherbourg as he was the pastor of the Aboriginal Inland Mission Church, (and) he had a mission house in Murgon."

The move was again "very helpful" to Joe who secured work on dairy farms between Goomeri and Murgon, another step along his life journey.

Uncle Joe's conversation is peppered by positive comments and even his life in Cherbourg, which he simply describes as being "rough and tough", gave him worthwhile experiences to pass on to the next generation.

But it's not just experiences Joe is sharing. It's also his values and spirituality and you can't help but think God chose Joe and then moulded him for his current role.

"My mum was a very spiritual person, she was a Christian and also a traditional woman. She knew about where she came from and our tribe, but they never spoke about much of it," he said.

"The only time we got that cultural traditional spirituality was when the men took us out hunting, and they'd talk to us in the language and tell us stories and teach us about bush survival and how to hunt and tell us about what certain spirit would guide them and things like that."

Joe said he was never "a goody two shoes" but he did see things at Cherbourg that he decided early on was not the way he wanted to live.

"I never ever took up drinking or smoking because I sort of saw all that on Cherbourg and I look at that and it wasn't going to make me a man - it wasn't a requirement and I saw the damage that it did to my father. He was an alcoholic and he gambled a lot and smoked and I thought there must be something better in life."

As Joe got older and his horizon broadened he retained his beliefs.

"You didn't have to be a Christian to be a good citizen in the community but I decided to keep that Christian belief and that's where I come from today."

And today it is Uncle Joe's turn to be a role model for younger people, indigenous or non-indigenous.

He works with students from St Edmund's and St Mary's colleges, in Ipswich, and St Peter Claver College, Riverview, using a literacy and numeracy-based approach he designed to pass on traditional culture and spirituality.

Uncle Joe also visits Ngutana-Lui, Brisbane Catholic Education's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural centre at Inala, in Brisbane's west, and is a regular visitor to both Catholic and state schools and sits on the Murri Court at Ipswich - all this from a bloke who confesses he was always interested in education, even though he didn't have much of it himself.

"My main concern in my life as a younger lad, up to my early 30s was about getting a job and I didn't have a good education," he said.

Joe said he wasn't "very bright" and had a literacy and numeracy problem that caused him to take seven years to finish a five-year apprenticeship and necessitated a return to "night school".

The need for education was firmly imbedded in his mind and highlighted even further when he and his wife had an opportunity to go back to Cherbourg as house parents managing a children's shelter.

"After a few weeks we saw that the kids at Cherbourg had literacy and numeracy problems. There were some at Cherbourg State School and some at Murgon State School, and their reading and writing wasn't up to scratch so we did some voluntary work at Cherbourg school," Joe said.

Joe's wife Sara was a teacher's aide at Murgon high school at the time and when she moved to Cherbourg she encouraged him to apply for her old position.

He got the job and took to it like a duck to water.

It was there that Joe came up with the idea of linking traditional and cultural education to literacy and numeracy and, with the help of a couple of teachers, created a special book for his students.

Joe finally returned to Brisbane and, again, you have to think God had a hand in his destiny.

Sitting at Ipswich mall one day he saw a job advertisement for someone to work with indigenous boys at St Edmund's College. He applied and was successful.

That was nine years ago and it didn't take other Catholic schools long to work out that Joe's methods and literacy and numeracy books on bush tucker and bush medicine worked.

Uncle Joe was soon working across a cluster of schools, and had founded a student dance group called the Koorana Dance Group. "Koorana" means "bring forth youth" in the Wakka Wakka language.

He said students needed more than a flag on a flagpole to make them feel part of a school, they needed to belong.

Uncle Joe teaches students about their culture and tradition, about bush animals and bush plants through hands-on, practical sessions followed up in the classroom by his booklets.

It seems Uncle Joe is on to a winner, with his approach resulting in students finding school more enjoyable, lifting their attendance rates and most importantly improving their literacy and numeracy skills.