Oamaru's Kiwi hero

Helping people find a sense of belonging is at the heart of what Oamaru man Joseph Cropley does. It’s led him on a life of teaching and giving back, and to being called a ‘hero’ by the students whose lives he’s changed.

Joseph Cropley can’t help helping people. It’s just part of who he is, he says. A couple of years ago Joseph was at the gym when he spotted some young men using the punching bag.

‘They didn’t know how to do it properly, so I went over and showed them how. They said I should start a gym, so I did.’

Joseph, who boxed as a young man, is now a coach at the club, which he runs from his garage. The sport is a good outlet for young people to get fit and learn discipline, resilience and commitment, he says, and the club’s members are gaining a good reputation. ‘We’ve been competing for two years and we’ve had about four title winners come through.’

Along with the boxing club, Joseph is a trustee at the local Te Whare Koa Community Marae, coaches youth touch rugby teams, is part of a group of regional education and community leaders looking at improving education pathways in the region, and is the Salvation Army Education and Employment (E&E) tutor in Oamaru. It was for the combination of this work that some of Joseph’s students and colleagues nominated him for a Kiwibank local hero award, which he was awarded last year.

For Joseph, the gym and the other roles are all ways to do what he loves, teaching and supporting people in need. ‘It’s another place where they have a sense of belonging. That’s pretty much why I do anything I do—touch rugby teams, boxing teams, here [at E&E], the marae—is so people have a sense of belonging.’

That passion for helping started young, Joseph says, and has seen him work in a range of teaching roles around the country, mostly with disadvantaged people.

Defining moment

Although he’s also worked at a freezing works and managed a McDonalds in Oamaru, Joseph says he was always going to go into teaching. Brought up in the town, Joseph didn’t find school easy, due to a turbulent home life. Despite that, he wasn’t surprised when a test he did with a careers adviser suggested he’d be good at teaching.

He was asked to teach Māori in primary and secondary schools when he was 17, and three years later got his first experience helping troubled young people as a teacher’s aide for students aged 15–17, some with serious violent behaviour issues. It turned out to be a defining moment in his life as he discovered a profession he loved that clicked with who he was.

‘I will never forget the faces of these boys as they were handed their first ever “A”, or the tears they cried when their family and teachers praised them for the first time in their lives,’ he says.

This was also a way for Joseph to give something back to the people who supported him and helped him get back into and finish school when he was a struggling teen living away from home at age 15, he says. ‘They helped me out and got me on the right path by just being there for me, giving me advice and that sort of thing.’

After a short spell as a teacher’s aid, Joseph decided to train as a teacher. He then worked for six years as a primary school teacher in Opononi and Rawene in Northland before returning to alternative education in Whangarei. Working with young people from a low-socio economic area could be tough, Joseph says, but his approach didn’t change and it got results, with some of his students going on to be head boys and girls and to achieve in careers around the country.

New opportunities in Oamaru

In 2004, Joseph and his family decided to move back to Oamaru, where his wife also grew up and where her family still live. Joseph moved away from education, managing the Oamaru McDonald’s and then a section of the local freezing works. Supporting young people was never far from his mind, though, especially at McDonald’s, where he had a lot of younger staff to whom he was offering support and advice on wider life problems.
But Joseph was still keen to get back to education, and when he saw the Salvation Army E&E job advertised, he quickly applied.

When he started at E&E in 2011, Joseph’s students included adult learners from 18 to 65 years, as well as teens who had left mainstream education. A year later, the job changed to solely teaching the E&E Youth Guarantee programme for teens aged 16–18. Some of the students are referred from Youth Justice or passed on by schools. They have no qualifications and many have low levels of literacy.

Their backgrounds are often complex, including gang affiliations, depression, ‘broken homes, drugs and alcohol, all the social issues you see in the world really,’ Joseph explains.

Success stories

One of his first students when he joined E&E was Anthony, an 18-year-old from a family where no one had a job. He struggled with low self-esteem and anger issues and was often told by job agencies that he was unemployable.

‘After his time with E&E he changed in so many ways. He became confident in speaking, he improved his hygiene and presentation, and his attendance and punctuality was immaculate. I arranged for him to have an interview at the local freezing works after about six months and he gained the position. He became a pioneer for all the learners at this centre. Because he was such a good employee, many other learners have gained employment there.’

The change in Anthony’s life and the money coming in to support his family also inspired Anthony’s father to get work.

Another was a 45-year-old man whose past criminal convictions were a barrier to getting a job. The repeated refusals had damaged his confidence and motivation.

‘I gave him responsibilities such as vehicle maintenance, being in charge of the centre in my absence and helping with behavioural management of the youth learners. This gave him some self-worth and his motivation returned. He started applying for more positions and was knocked back again and again. So I spoke to him about resilience and that there would be an employer out there who would give him a chance.’

Not long after, Joseph says the man was accepted into a night- shift position at the local freezing works.

‘He impressed them so much that when he applied for a position at the local road works company, they gave him a glowing reference. He now drives past the centre in his road works truck, beeps and waves with a huge smile on his face. Every time I see him working on a footpath or road in our town I am proud of his achievement.’

It’s not an uncommon story for Joseph. Eight of 11 students in his first Youth Guarantee course went straight into work and one went on to higher education.

Time to help students succeed

A key difference between mainstream education and E&E, he says, is that busy school teachers with large classes don’t have as much time as he does for one-on-one or small group teaching and the crucial pastoral care to address wider issues behind why a student isn’t doing well at school.

‘Back when I was at high school I had a lot of issues going on at home that were far more important than education at the time. It’s the same today. These students go to school and the teacher expects them to have done their homework, when they come from an abusive home or whatever. In the end they tell the teacher to stuff off, because their mind is on their problems.’

That Joseph’s been where they’ve been and turned out alright helps his students relate to and respect his advice, although he’s careful not to try and force them to do anything, but to advise and let them choose.

That perspective perhaps also explains why Joseph sees his students differently to many others. He dismisses completely the idea that his job might be tough or his students hard to work with, insisting they are intelligent people with a good work ethic, who simply need a different approach. Being patient and having children of his own helps, he says. But the only times he’s ever had to remove people from courses are for turning up drunk or high —something he takes a hard line on.

‘They’re just typical kids. I get it said to me quite often, “They must be really hard to teach and work with,” and I say, “No, they’re really easy and really awesome to work with.” It helps that I’ve got six kids and three of them are teenagers.’

More than academic skills

Joseph’s work involves a less traditional approach when it comes to class time, working on building confidence, self-worth and wider life skills, alongside qualifications.

‘I tell them that communication is the biggest thing they need in the world—to be able to talk to different kinds of people. I have them talking to the Mayor, employers, their peers, old teachers, trying to expose them to as many different people as possible.’

The foundations of the work are done in his E&E class time, where a typical day is split into three parts.  

‘The first third is social; building confidence, self-esteem and communication. Then there’s the academic side of things. Then we have recreation time; sport, fun and games, anything.’

A fourth part of the day happens after Joseph finishes his class time and heads off to one of his other roles, which usually involves more work with young people. ‘I’m here [at E&E] at 8 am and finish at 3:30 or 4 pm. Then I go straight from here to whatever’s next, and I take half the students with me, depending on what it is.’

Another big part of Joseph’s work is encouraging his students to get involved in community activities. His students have painted murals for community events, run dance and music competitions and helped old ladies stack wood and move house. For some, it is the first time they have experienced the pleasure and value of doing something for someone without wanting something in return and it is always a valuable lesson, he says.

That’s how Joseph measures change—in the way student confidence changes and how they’re contributing to the community. His reward, Joseph says, is hearing his students talking excitedly about helping others, or hearing others talking about how well his students are doing.

Joseph recalls a past student who was ‘doing nothing with his life and with himself’ before joining E&E, and who went on to gain his NCEA level one and two qualifications and get a job. It’s clear, though, that Joseph is equally excited that the young man has a flat and a girlfriend and the way his life is progressing beyond work. ‘In just over a year, he went from being a young guy totally lost, to a valued member of the community.’

The hardest part of the job is how emotionally draining it can be, learning not to take on everyone’s problems or taking those problems home at the end of the day. Yet, even when he is at home, Joseph says he’s still on call if anyone needs him.

‘I never [turn my phone off], because I’ve been called by young people at 12:30 at night, and if I hadn’t taken their call they may have committed suicide. When I say to someone, “I’m always there for you, no matter what time”, I’m not just saying it, I mean it! And I know they wouldn’t be calling or texting me at that time of night if they didn’t really need to.’

Five years ago, before he started at E&E, Joseph recommitted himself as a Christian, but says his faith did not change the way he approached his work.

‘To be honest, no, I’ve always been like this—even before I became a Christian. This is who I am, who I have always been, even when I was a young person. But my faith has helped me. Since I gave my heart back to the Lord, my life has improved and it’s helped in what I do. I think things work better because I have God’s blessing.’

As to his own methods of working, Joseph says he’s not sure what the secret is behind the success.

‘Everyone asks me what it is I do that makes a difference—and to be honest I have no idea. I think it’s maybe the love I show them, the understanding to make them feel valued. All the education stuff is a by-product of genuinely caring for and helping the person do what they want to do. I keep that in my heart: that I’m here for them most of all.’

Go to www.educationandemployment.org.nz for more on Education & Employment (E&E), including training programmes around New Zealand

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by Robin Raymond(c) 'War Cry' magazine, 20 February 2016, pp 5-7.
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.