STEPS - Library - Central Queensland University

Part Four: Student transformations
Curiosity, fascination and a thousand
questions of ‘Why?’
Stacey Ritchie
STEPS! Would you believe that it’s been 20 years of continual lifelong
learning? I’m proud to have been a part of the ongoing process of learning
with the staff involved in STEPS at Central Queensland University in
Rockhampton. However, as I sit here trying to put my thoughts to paper
with tremors of fear — or maybe it’s adrenaline bounding along my pulsing
veins — as my thoughts tumble to be found, I realise that to talk about
yourself face-to-face with people you meet is very different to placing your
life on paper for all to see.
My name is Stacey Ritchie. I was born in1965 in Bankstown, New South
Wales. The early years of my life were split between living in Illawong on a
peninsula which is situated between the Georges and Waranoora Rivers,
just south of Sydney, and various suburbs around metropolitan South
Australia. Growing up with a large family in two states and a father who
served in the Australian Navy, we moved quite regularly. The moving
helped shape my young personality already intrigued by a world of
questions about new areas, cultures and things I just couldn’t yet explain.
My fascination with the world started at a very young age. I remember my
Nana shaking anything that I had worn outside at the laundry door, always
nodding her head back and forth as a variety of things that had taken my
fancy tumbled to the ground. The trinkets would be stones of different
shapes, sizes and colour, shells, bits of bark or a few live creatures that
would amble around for a moment getting their bearings before they
scurried off through the garden, into the bush. By the age of nine, I had
attended one kindergarten and four primary schools, my parents had been
divorced for a while, and my mum was about to remarry. With the
impending wedding, my two younger brothers, Mum and I moved in with
Mum’s husband-to-be and his four sons. We were often referred to as ‘The
Brady Bunch’, but that’s another story.
Over the next ten years, school was definitely a place of growing in a
variety of social and academic learning experiences. As I gasped for air in
the turmoil of puberty, and the tomboy lost the board shorts for perky little
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