THE UNWITTING MATRIARCH

She never asked to lead. She simply never stopped showing up. 

Chapter 3 — Common Sense University

If there was ever a person destined to have a difficult relationship with formal education, it was Kerre. Schools like rules, routines and children who sit quietly, colour inside the lines and ask permission before wandering off. By all accounts, Kerre had spent most of her childhood doing exactly the opposite.

Long before she was old enough to sit at a school desk, she had already developed a reputation for disappearing without warning, investigating things that interested her and returning home entirely unconcerned by the panic she had caused along the way. It was not rebellion in the modern sense, nor was it some deliberate attempt to challenge authority. She was not trying to make a statement and certainly was not seeking attention.

She simply possessed a curiosity that frequently outranked caution and a confidence that made the rest of the family nervous. That same curiosity followed her into the classroom and immediately found itself at odds with a system designed around compliance. The collision was probably inevitable.

The irony is that people looking back on Kerre’s life might easily assume she was highly educated. She raised a family, navigated financial hardship, survived circumstances that would have overwhelmed many people and accumulated a storehouse of practical knowledge that seemed almost limitless. Yet much of what she learned came despite school rather than because of it.

In many ways, Kerre’s true education occurred at what might be called Common Sense University. There were no classrooms, no certificates and certainly no graduation ceremonies. The lessons arrived through necessity, observation, mistakes and survival, and they were often far more useful than anything contained within a textbook.

Like many Australians of her generation, schooling was often less about encouraging individual growth and more about enforcing conformity. Teachers were authority figures, children were expected to know their place and questioning decisions was rarely encouraged. The cane remained an accepted educational tool, and discipline was frequently valued above understanding.

Kerre discovered fairly quickly that her place was usually wherever somebody else thought she should not be. She questioned things that others accepted without discussion and had little patience for rules that seemed to exist purely for the sake of rules. Those traits would eventually become strengths, although schools rarely recognised them that way.

Among her school memories was one teacher in particular who became the benchmark against which all future difficult people would be measured. Even decades later, the memory remained vivid enough to provoke an immediate response. Most people eventually forget the names of teachers they disliked, but Kerre seemed capable of recalling every perceived injustice in remarkable detail.

Whether the teacher genuinely deserved such a reputation or whether two stubborn personalities simply collided is almost impossible to determine now. Family stories have a habit of becoming polished through repeated retelling, with villains becoming slightly more villainous and heroes becoming slightly more heroic. The truth usually lives somewhere between those extremes, although that nuance rarely survives around family dinner tables.

What remained unquestioned was the depth of Kerre’s dislike. The relationship deteriorated to the point where every school day became a battle of wills rather than a learning experience. Each side appeared determined to prove the other wrong, and neither seemed particularly interested in compromise.

Looking back through modern eyes, it is tempting to imagine meetings with counsellors, behavioural assessments and carefully structured intervention programs. In those days the solution was generally much simpler and considerably less sophisticated. If a child refused to cooperate, the cane often made an appearance.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, physical punishment assumes the recipient values compliance more than principle. Kerre did not. If anything, attempts to force her into submission only strengthened her determination to resist.

The defining moment arrived after one particular encounter involving the cane. Most children would have accepted the punishment, endured the embarrassment and returned to class because that was how the system expected the story to unfold. The rules were clear, the authority unquestioned and the consequences understood.

Kerre, however, viewed the situation rather differently. Instead of returning to class, she simply walked out. There were no dramatic speeches, no grand declarations and no attempt to organise a student uprising.

She did not seek sympathy from classmates, nor did she appear particularly concerned about the consequences. She simply decided she had reached the end of her tolerance and acted accordingly. It was such a perfectly Kerre response that family members would laugh about it years later.

The incident revealed something important that would become a recurring theme throughout her life. Authority alone never impressed her, titles meant very little and positions meant even less. People earned respect through behaviour rather than status, and no amount of rank or prestige could compensate for poor conduct.

That philosophy would later shape her parenting, her friendships and even the way she interacted with professionals. Doctors, lawyers, bankers and politicians all started from exactly the same position in Kerre’s world. Some were competent, some were not and their job titles did not automatically determine which category they occupied.

Underlying that view was an extraordinarily strong sense of right and wrong. Kerre’s moral compass was not complicated, nuanced or endlessly negotiable. In many respects it was almost black and white. People either did the right thing or they did not. They either treated others fairly or they did not. They either kept their word or they did not. While others might search for excuses, mitigating circumstances or convenient shades of grey, Kerre generally saw the issue much more simply.

That approach occasionally made life difficult for those around her because she was not afraid to voice her opinion when she believed somebody had crossed a line. There was rarely any mystery about where she stood on an issue. Friends, family members and even complete strangers could usually determine her position within a matter of minutes. Some people found that confronting because modern society often rewards diplomacy, ambiguity and the ability to avoid taking a firm position. Kerre possessed very little interest in any of those skills.

At the same time, that certainty created a level of trust that many people found reassuring. You never had to wonder what Kerre really thought because she would almost certainly tell you. There was no hidden agenda, no elaborate game of social manoeuvring and very little capacity for saying one thing while meaning another. People knew where they stood with her, and there is a surprising comfort in dealing with somebody who operates in such a transparent manner.

As the years passed, that unwavering commitment to what she considered right became one of the defining characteristics of her personality. It was not that she believed herself infallible or incapable of mistakes. Rather, she believed that integrity mattered more than appearances and that character revealed itself through actions rather than words. In a world that often seems increasingly complicated, there was something refreshingly uncomplicated about Kerre’s view that right was right, wrong was wrong and no amount of clever explanation could completely disguise the difference.

Modern education experts might debate endlessly whether walking out of school represented resilience, independence, stubbornness or outright defiance. Kerre probably would have dismissed the discussion entirely and asked what practical purpose it served. That response would have been entirely consistent with the way she approached most problems throughout her life.

Theoretical conversations interested her far less than practical outcomes. Her questions were usually straightforward and focused on results rather than process. Could it be fixed, could it be improved and would it work were generally the only questions she considered important.

If the answer to those questions was yes, she was interested. If not, she generally moved on to something more useful. There was little point wasting energy discussing problems if nobody intended to solve them.

That practical mindset raises an interesting question when examining the life she eventually built. How do we actually measure intelligence, and who gets to decide what intelligence looks like? The answer becomes less obvious the more closely one examines the evidence.

Modern society often equates intelligence with academic achievement. Degrees are displayed proudly on office walls, certificates are framed behind desks and examination results become markers of success. The assumption is that educational achievement and intelligence are closely connected.

Life experience suggests otherwise. Many of the smartest people I have ever encountered possessed very little formal education. Equally, some of the most highly qualified individuals I have met seemed entirely incapable of navigating everyday life without assistance.

They could explain complex theories but struggled with simple realities. They understood systems but not people. They possessed knowledge yet lacked wisdom.

Kerre belonged firmly in the first category. She may not have accumulated qualifications, but she developed judgement. She may not have mastered advanced mathematics, but she could stretch a household budget beyond what appeared mathematically possible.

She may not have written academic papers, but she could read people with remarkable accuracy and usually identify trouble long before others recognised it. She understood consequences because she had lived with them. She understood priorities because she had been forced to make difficult choices.

Most importantly, she understood responsibility because there was nobody else available to carry it for her. Those lessons rarely appeared in school textbooks. They were lessons acquired through necessity rather than instruction.

The family achievements that followed provide perhaps the strongest evidence of all. Children raised in modest circumstances went on to build successful lives. Challenges were overcome, opportunities were created and obstacles became problems to solve rather than excuses to surrender.

None of that occurred because someone handed the family a blueprint. It happened because common sense, perseverance and determination became part of the household culture. Those qualities were modelled daily and absorbed almost by accident.

They became so normal that family members often failed to recognise how unusual they actually were. Success was expected because effort was expected. Responsibility was expected because there was rarely any alternative.

The education system certainly played a role along the way. Teachers contributed, schools provided opportunities and knowledge remains enormously important. No sensible person would argue otherwise.

Yet when the family’s story is viewed as a whole, it becomes difficult to avoid the conclusion that some of the most important lessons were learned far from any classroom. They were learned around kitchen tables, through hardship, through mistakes and through watching parents solve problems with limited resources and unlimited determination. They were learned through observation, repetition and necessity.

Kerre’s report cards may never have predicted the life she would eventually lead. They could not have anticipated the resilience she would develop, the family she would help shape or the countless challenges she would overcome. The measurements used by schools were simply not designed to assess those qualities.

Perhaps that is the real lesson of Common Sense University. Report cards can measure spelling, arithmetic and attendance. They can rank students against their peers and provide neat summaries of academic performance.

What they cannot do is quantify resilience, assess courage or grade common sense. Those qualities reveal themselves only over time and usually under pressure. If schools awarded marks for those attributes, Kerre might well have graduated at the very top of the class.