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Good
news
 We
were coming back from [a country town]
And the envelope was sitting on the table
And mum goes, 'There's this letter for you, can you open it
straight away?' (laughter)
And I go, 'No, I have to do something.'
And she said, 'Open it now!'
And dad's there sitting at the table looking at it
And he goes, 'That's from SSABSA.'
I go, ' I can see the name on it, dad.'
He goes, 'Just open the God damn thing.'
I go, 'OK.'
And just opened it and left it on the table so they could
read it first
And went and did my stuff
And when I came back Dad was there chucking the papers in
the air, and going 'Yes!!!'
I'm going, like, 'Dad, settle down!'
Yeah, it was an exciting day for mum and dad… (Joanne)
'Joanne' was the first Aboriginal student from her remote
community to complete Year 12. In 1999, 45 other Indigenous
students completed the South Australian Year 12 Certificate
of Education, to that point the largest number ever. Antonio
Mercurio and Linda Clayton interviewed 16 of these young people
eight months after the event to explore the nature of their
experience and the reasons for their success.
| Read
their paper: 'The Day the Postie Came…' |
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