Joe Kirk

To start off, I came across a leaflet of St Eddie's, saying they were looking for an Indigenous person to do drama, art or music. And I looked at it and I thought, 'well there's something here. I can do one of these.' So I came up and talked to David Harrison, and I told him about my experiences and where I came from, which is Cherbourg. I was a teacher aide at a high school for four years, and then I went on from there to work as a Community Educational Counsellor for other schools in Brisbane. We got together again and I talked about Aboriginal art and explained about the dreaming and the stories of Aboriginal art. Not only talking about the dreaming and the stories, but how in the story there's an educational story. It told us about the dreaming and what dreaming is all about. How the old people came across a story and it might be about their tradition and their totem, whether it be an animal or a tree or a plant, or whatever.

That's how I got the job and I've been here for over two years and now I work with St Mary's and St Peter Claver as well. It's full time, now, more than full time …!

Where I am is a lot of the time is I'm down in the classroom in the grass roots, helping teachers to be aware of the issues of Indigenous people and the students here. Whether you're talking about their spirituality, their tradition or their culture. For me, spirituality comes first. You see you've got to understand Aboriginal spirituality and then go onto the literacy and numeracy and culture and tradition.

I've been in a few classes in the last couple of weeks talking about our beliefs and our spirituality. I always say that it's important to us to recognise that the land is part of our spirit. That we come from the earth and everything like that and how significant a certain rock and a certain tree is to Indigenous people. Right across the board, even though we're talking about our bush stuff and our animals, it's all educational. It's educational awareness about our culture for Aboriginal people. And talking to the people on staff and giving them the knowledge of how we think and where we come from.

Some of the lads, some Aboriginal people, we find it hard because we've got to retain our culture while when we're getting an education. Like I found it hard myself too, to keep all these things that the elders taught me… but I didn't leave too many things behind. And now in keeping with the 30 years of my upbringing with the elders is I'm teaching a lot about our tradition and culture. Kids love it and they're coming up and saying that they are identifying with being Aboriginal and they want to learn and what they're learning is great. And they're going on to be whatever they want to be.

And being proud. You know a few years ago they sort of felt ashamed and they never came out as much as they do now, but things have changed.

I always say to teachers, well you're a professional teacher, so you teach. And if you aren't aware of Indigenous issues, well I'll teach you. Especially about our culture and tradition. When they need support, they say, Joe can you come in and talk about this issue, can you tell us a story about this or that, and I go in and do it. And I go in and talk to the Indigenous students and to the non-Indigenous students as well.

I'd like to see more Indigenous people in schools and more Indigenous qualified teachers. There are some out there in the community. There's plenty of work left and Indigenous kids often need a lot of patience. That's what I talk to teachers about as well.

There was a boy a while back, he was having a problem with graphics and he came to speak to me and said he wanted to jump subjects and he didn't want to do graphics anymore. So I talked to the teacher and worked out that I could do a bit of graphics in that class with the boy for a while.
It was just extra time and patience and now he's all excited about turning up for his graphic class.