Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, in May 2017 undergraduate student Nicholas Na interviewed Caleb Clifford-Jones, a student in his final year at St. Ignatius’ College. In this interview, Caleb shares his thoughts on the challenges and opportunities that he faced as an indigenous student at a private Catholic school.

Caleb, could you start by telling me about your journey to St. Ignatius’ College? What made you want to come here?

During year 10, I was struggling with school because I had stuff at home I had to take care of, and I didn’t really want to go to school. I didn’t really show up much. I was planning on going to the Air Force because I wasn’t doing well at school and didn’t think I could do well. When my mom asked me what I wanted to do for college, I was just planning on not doing it. But then I got this idea of boarding school, that it might be able to help my grades because I couldn’t miss attending. We couldn’t afford private school, but we found out about the Australian Indigenous Education Foundation (AIEF), which helps fund education. And what they said was that I needed to first apply to schools, and then they would maybe accept me. So I started getting in contact with a bunch of different schools, and St. Ignatius’ was one where I had the best shot. When I had completely forgot about it, we got a call from Mr. [Anthony] Reilly from the indigenous program here; I came and visited, and they offered me a spot here. The school met AIEF halfway on the prices, and I got in here.

What were your reasons for wanting to drop out of school and join the Air Force?

I’ve always had low self-esteem, and I always struggled at school because I had Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). I never knew about it. In addition, during that time, my mom was also sick; she has a couple of issues, and I was a carer for her back then. I would stay home sometimes to help. In general, I wasn’t doing too well at school, and I didn’t have motivation to go. When I did go, I never really saw results that I was expecting. I’d wake up in the day and just not decide to go to school and do something else.

It seems like you were dealing with a lot.

Yeah, but my mom tried to keep me motivated, and I ended up applying here. I didn’t think she really wanted me to go to the Air Force, but it was a way for me to complete college without doing too well. 

Is your mom okay now?

No, she’s still sick. It’s like a chronic illness. It’s been really hard for her, having me away for most of the year. So that’s been a big change, but she really wanted me to do it because she saw I was struggling with motivation and what I wanted to do for the future. So she’s coping without me.

When do you get to go back home? 

Usually in the holidays. 

Could you tell me more about your home?

We were living with my grandma for a while because we didn’t have much money, and my mom couldn’t work because she got sick. Eventually, we ended up getting into a kind of shared house place. That’s been really great—it’s got a really strong community. I went to school in Canberra from year 1 to year 10, and then I came here. 

When did you find out that you were First Nations?

I’ve always known. My grandma was “stolen”—a part of the Stolen Generation. She’s always made sure that we know about it. When she was stolen, she knew she was indigenous but she didn’t know her family, and she was adopted. So she spent a good portion of her life trying to find her real family. I think that was after my mom grew up a bit. Our family’s always known, because she tried really hard to incorporate indigenous culture in our lives and make us know where our background is from. I think she started the National Sorry Day committee which made Sorry Day happen, when the government apologized. She spent a lot of her life dedicated to that. 

It seems like your grandmother’s identity as First Nations was extremely important for her. Do you feel the same way? Would you say that your indigenous identity is really personal to you?

I’ve never really thought about it. It’s just part of my heritage. At times, I get this feeling that I’m connected to this whole 40,000-year-old culture, but most of the time, I’m not really thinking about it often.

Let’s switch gears here to talk about academics. Has your ADD carried over to your classes here?

I’m on medication now, so it’s a lot easier to manage. In addition, when I started school, I put a more effort into organization. It still impacts what I could potentially be doing, but it’s a lot easier to manage now that I know I have ADD. I also struggled with a lot of bad social anxiety in year 10, and that carried over in exams when I would just blank and get a bit of a panic attack. That environment was really new to me. I don’t think that, before I came here, I had to write an essay in a 45-minute time frame. It was always, like, I got two weeks to write it. So in coming here, that was the biggest challenge—getting used to how they do tests, the really stressful parts. That was really hard to deal with. The first semester I had here, my grades here were not good. Well, they were still a lot better than how I was doing previously.

So how are you doing now?

A lot better. I’m doing four-unit math now. It used to be my least favorite subject, but now it’s one of my favorites. When I was doing math at my old school, I was terrible at it. But here, I became a lot more determined and focused. I think I struggled with math at first; my grades were probably the lowest in math because of all the school I missed back in year 10 and year 9 as well. There was a lot of prerequisite knowledge that I didn’t know—even stuff like multiplying fractions I had to learn by myself. Once I got all the basics—while learning stuff like calculus on top of that—once I had all caught up after about a semester, that’s when I started to enjoy it. In addition to math, science has always been my favorite subject. That was a subject I always did well in, even in year 10. I think I’m second in Chemistry at the moment. Physics is good as well. English has been a really big challenge for me; even now I struggle with it. But now I’m in the B range, instead of in the C range. 

What do you think has contributed to this kind of growth?

I think the main thing is just the crazy support and network they have here, especially at Riverview. Also, the curriculum here is a lot more organized than in Canberra. Everything has a syllabus; everything is taught in an order. Boarding has also been beneficial because it puts you in a structure—the organization that I was talking about. You don’t have to worry about trying to motivate yourself to find that time to study; it’s just three hours a night for a weekday. There’s just like crazy resources here that I’d never have had access to: they give you a laptop, and there are websites that can just talk to you. It’s just having that access to resources to teach yourself and that structure. Also, here, everyone’s so understanding. There’ve been times I’ve been here, probably when I first started, that I didn’t think I could do it just because they put you to a higher standard. They just tell you to try your best. On the religious side of it, the Jesuit ideals sit well with me—like teach the whole person. This school just really sits well with me. The support they give me is really great.

In those moments that you’ve mentioned when you felt like you wanted to drop out, what pushed you to keep going?

Probably around end of year 11, maybe at the start of year 12, that’s probably when I was at the worst point because I was missing home a lot. I don’t get to see people from home too often. At that point, I was really drained because we’d just finished year 11 exams, and then I had that realization that now everything counts to your Higher School Certificate and it’s on. I was really homesick at that point, and the workload was kicking up a whole other notch that I had to get used to again. There were times when I was really unmotivated. But I think what got me through was my family pushing me to keep going and my friends. Over time, when I started making more friends, they helped me a lot get through those hard times, because they were in the exact same situation. Just talking to them about it and realizing that you’re not the only person having those thoughts that you want to drop out is motivation to keep going. And everyone goes through. In my mind, what really helps to motivate me: as long as I do my best, I can’t be down on myself. I think that really helped, because I made myself a bit sick from putting pressure on myself, and that’s when I was close to just breaking and leaving. 

Are you friends with any of the other First Nations boys, and if so, is there anything special about those relationships?

With the First Nations program, you get put in an environment where you meet up a lot. And you see these boys all the time. And I think I made friends with them easier just because they come similar backgrounds as me or they have similar struggles. That’s another big thing—when I got here, just the fact that I’m on a bursary—I kind of felt like I didn’t deserve to be here. But seeing these boys in the same situation helped. 

How often do you guys meet formally?

Probably three times a term. 

What are your future plans now?

My main goal is to go back home and study at ANU (the Australian National University). I think it’s the best uni in Australia.

That’s awesome! It looks like you really made some strides, especially in rediscovering motivation and direction, while you were here. You mentioned the Jesuit values sat well with you. Did you have a faith background coming in?

I don’t think I’ve ever gone to church before coming here. Usually, you have to be baptized to come to the school, but because I’m in the First Nations program, they let you through. The reason why I applied to this school in the first place was—I’ve never really wanted to go to a Catholic school—but when I read about Jesuits, which is what they are here, even though I don’t personally believe in God, their ideals and their values sat really well with me, besides the super-religious stuff.

What kind of values?

They say, “Find God in all things.” They don’t have such emphasis on praying to God and all that—just kind of finding wherever you might wander. They have a lot of values around the whole thing about doing your best. They believe in educating the entire person, not just trying to focus on their grades. This school isn’t selective. They care more about a holistic education.

Has coming to a religious school affected your own worldview? If so, in what way has it affected your perspectives?

I’d say I’m agnostic. But I think coming here has made me value spirituality a lot more, not in the sense of God and stuff, but just more kind of the beliefs that it can give you, like the values that can help you create. I think coming here has just been really good; even though I don’t personally believe in a particular religion, I find it really valuable to know about it. 

Could you go through how spiritual programs at the school has impacted you?

For St. Ignatius, his whole thing is reflection—reflecting on your actions before you do something. And that’s really emphasized here. Every day, we have something called an examen, which is where we basically spend five or 10 minutes looking back on the day and thinking about what we did wrong, what we could have done better, all of that—actually thinking about what you’ve done instead of just doing it and just going about your day. 

Do all the students do this together?

Yeah, it’s a dedicated time every day. And they don’t force it on you. You could just sit there and do nothing if you want. But I think it’s cool. And then another big thing is service, which is another thing modeled after St. Ignatius. He was really well-off, and he didn’t really care about the poor. He nearly died, and that changed his whole outlook on life. And he started helping the poor and really using his wealth to help others. And that’s a really big thing here. They constantly tell us “You’ve really benefited by coming here. You’re really lucky where you are in society, your even being born in Australia. You have to give back to people that are less fortunate.” That’s a big thing in year 11. You have to do 20 hours of service. That could be from going and feeding the poor to helping sick people. For me, I went to and helped a children’s hospital. And that’s the whole premise behind immersions, which is what I went to Nepal for. We go there to help people in need, and kind of get a firsthand experience of what poverty is like.