By Liana Stanusi, Trainer, Teacher, Counselor

Ever since I was a little kid I Ioved being surrounded by people. Yes, this is one of those stories. However, it’s not a story about how I’ve always known I wanted to be a doctor, or how when I turned five I knew my life-calling was to become a pilot.

It actually took quite a bit of time, and trial-and-error for me to find my calling. In some ways, I am still looking for it, you could say. But what I do know, is whatever I do, I thrive when I’m together with others, when I get to help someone, guide someone, offer support, help people gain insights, facilitate for them a learning environment in which they can flourish and unleash their potential.

Because the thing is, a real educator is not someone who passes on information, but someone who enables others to discover new ideas, to acquire new skills and to develop, by offering the right framework to do so.

I used to put on plays with the kids in my class when I was in elementary school. And yes, I would give directions, I would have a vision for what things should look like and what my characters would say, but the best part of it all was not telling people what to do and how to do it-it was discovering together with them how they could do all that.

I went on to study Humanities and already when I was at university I started teaching. It was so fulfilling to do that, and soon enough I realized, once again, that it was the dialogue, the debate, the questioning, that really fueled me and my lectures, and not the transfer of information from some kind of superior position that attracted me to this endeavor.

These days, I work with people of different ages- my youngest pupils are four years old and my oldest students are in their forties. I cannot even capture in words the joy it brings me to be working with these people. Being a teacher, a trainer and a counselor means I get to learn so much, myself. About the people I work with, about myself, about life, about the very process of teaching and learning. Every day brings about a new discovery, and the excitement of guiding others opens up so many new worlds with each session or lesson that I deliver.

I think the key to being a good teacher is first of all being a good learner. I have an insatiable curiosity about people and life, and I can safely say that although nothing is permanent in life, there is one thing that remains a constant for me, personally: my thirst for discovery and knowledge, my desire to find out what makes people tick, what gets in their way and how to best assist them in breaking whatever barriers they face.

At the end of the day, the most important thing, whatever your area of expertise, whatever you do personally and professionally, is to stay curious.

So tell me, what are you curious about?