Rangitoto College Alumni Award Speech
The below is a transcript of my speech delivered at the Rangitoto College Academy alumni awards held on 18th August 2023.
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Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.
Ko te piha te maunga, ko piha te awa, nō piha ahua
Ko Crossan tōku whānau, ko Jenene tōku ingoa.
Ngā mihi nui. Thank you very much for having me here this evening, I feel honoured and humbled by the mihi and recognition. I’d like to welcome our distinguished guests, the Rangitoto College community: teachers, students and parents, plus friends and family. And, of course, to my fellow honourees.
When the school first reached out to me, I thought I was in trouble. There’s nothing quite like a note that says, “please contact the principal’s office” to instantly induce feelings of guilt.
Even after 29 years, as it turns out, those feelings never quite disappear. As someone who left school without any real formal qualifications, my recurring dreams for years were of being made to go back to school. Which could bring into question whether this evening is actually my worst nightmare come true.
Upon hearing why the school wanted me to return for this event, I found myself in a state of disbelief. But why? It made absolutely no sense to me. As the school’s Director of Communications, Sally Thompson, can attest, I spent a considerable amount of time posing questions back and forth before agreeing to come along tonight.
Mostly I just didn’t think they’d done their research and perhaps didn’t actually know my history. Surely, I asked my husband, they wouldn’t be giving an award to someone who didn’t actually finish her schooling?
In the end I saw it as an opportunity. Not for my ego to take a boost (though, thank you, it certainly does help), or to dress up (though, as you can see my daughters and I love any opportunity to do so), or even to bring my parents along to something — which never really happens nowadays.
But the opportunity was to tell a story that was likely very different to my fellow honourees. A journey not like my peers, atypical, unusual, the path less trodden. Having left school at such an early age and forged a way forward, particularly in the mid 90’s, it was not only unlikely, it was frowned upon.
For many years my motivation came from being told that I was a high-school drop-out and that I would amount to nothing. I know that the teacher who spoke those words later regretted them, as we had the most unusual privilege of being able to speak about this a few years ago when I came to the school to speak at an event for international women’s day and to my surprise she was still here!
But as the saying goes, sometimes our best lessons come from the least expected places. It has taken nearly 30 years for me to reach a point where I can see that the hardest things were the making of me, they gave me reason to strive forward, to show up, to do more, to try harder.
Looking back, I wouldn’t change a thing. Even the tough stuff. I truly believe that we are here to learn lessons in life and it’s what we take from the difficult times that shapes who we become and the influence we can have in other people’s lives.
It is through the darkest days, the longest nights that we find out what we’re really made of. It has taken many years to be able to know my wairua and understand why I’m here.
It is not the accolades or the trappings of success that determine my value, but in the way that I turn up for my whānau and for myself, and for those I don’t even know.
I believe that acts of service are what can and will positively change this world, not just throwing down ladders, but climbing down them and walking alongside people.
I recognise the role privilege has played in my life and whilst I grew up pākeha, I am fiercely proud of my Māori heritage and the journey that led me to my whakapapa, has helped shape my mid-life at a time when I needed it most, when I felt most lost, most disconnected.
If it weren’t for the aroha and kindness of those who supported me through those tough years of being extremely sick and feeling incapable, I wonder what might have happened to my life. I take paying forward that kindness very seriously and consider how we can enhance mana in others every single day.
My story is not one that you’ll likely hear very often, but I hope that changes. My desire for that change doesn’t come from a desire to devalue education, as I hold knowledge and data above almost everything else. It comes from hoping that as we understand more about how we’re all differently comprised, that we begin to make room for alternative pathways.
Not everyone is going to be able to finish school, be it through a lack of means, a health crisis or an incongruence with the schooling system, there will always be outliers. Throughout history we have treated these individuals poorly, marking them down for their lack of stickability or smarts, even if that wasn’t the truth.
Without formal qualifications, it was impossible to get a job, a promotion or to be taken seriously. Up until recently not having a degree would have meant I could never work at somewhere like Google. Thankfully, that’s never been on my bucket list. And nor should it be, any place that defines its culture and those who are allowed to participate in it, by a piece of paper afforded to only a subset of society, isn’t a place where I would like to spend my time.
Google thankfully realised that creativity and innovation can’t truly flourish if diversity of thought isn’t embraced and as a result they dropped that rule in 2021, as the world changed and the format of how business environments operated was halted and permanently disrupted.
They recognised that it was no longer fit for purpose, that we had arrived into a new era, which required a broader view of how we define success and what metrics we may use to measure an individual’s capabilities.
There will be others in this school, right now, who are more like me than ever. We are entering into the most entrepreneurial time in history and there are more people seeking deeper meaning and connection to their work — a purpose.
As Aotearoa matures and success stories blossom out of the innovative garden seeds we planted over a decade ago, we’ll motivate the next-generation to give it a go, to be bold, to dare to be different. It’s where all the fun stuff is, out on the edges, where no else dares to go. It’s scary as hell, but it’s also exhilarating and I’d have it no other way.
My hope for the future is that it exists today. That a kid who turns up to their school counsellor isn’t discouraged from being different, but recognised for their uniqueness and offered support to achieve their goals through less common paths.
Rather than do it alone, do it with support and encouragement. Given a way to come back to school if need be as a wonderful back-stop, rather it being the stuff of their nightmares, with fear-fuelled ‘i told you so’s’ at the ready.
Thank you for this honour this evening. It really does mean the world to me. I feel incredibly fortunate for the journey I have been on, the support I have received from my wonderful whānau, in particular my husband Scottie and children, Affy, Maddie and Isa. And of course, my parents, Patricia and Gordon, whom without their mutual love, I wouldn’t be here today.
I wondered why I was so emotional about this evening and I realised that I had been holding my breath for a very long time, that not finishing school had weighed on my mind. As I stand here today, I can finally let that go entirely. It is a closed loop, a full circle, the completion of a story.
I may never have sat an exam in my life, but I did recently get a contract from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University that called me Dr Crossan, so I must be doing something right — even if it was in error.
Thank you Rangitoto College for empowering this student to help make a positive difference in the world. The role you played may not be the one you thought you would, but it was a crucial one. I know it turned out for me, but I worry that it didn’t for the outliers of my generation who didn’t have the same privilege as I did — be it support, mana, luck or birth-right lottery. It wasn’t a great system in the 1990’s, but I hope that today schools recognise all the wonderfully diverse ways kids can show up. Because when we know better, we do better.
As Steve Jobs once said, “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who usually do.”
