The young people I work with will often ask me, ‘how did you learn to do what you do?’.

Most of the time, they are expecting to hear a simple answer that suggests one structured path that they can follow. And to one end, there is some direction in that. I am a registered teacher who graduated with a dual degree, and this degree has allowed me to spend over 13 years teaching language, culture, and history in schools across Queensland. But this response only focuses on what I learned, not how I learned.

Rather, it is a question better answered by sharing some of the stories that have shaped how I have grown.

It starts with the unlikeliest of meetings between two people - one from a small town in regional Victoria and the other from an even smaller village on Selapiu Island - my parents. Complete opposites in most every way, they found common ground in their shared values of community, education, and justice. My mother works as a nurse dedicated to community health, and my father worked as a detective dedicated to community safety, with both finding pathways to teaching others at different times in different ways. And from observing the calm and considered way they teach, I learned how to notice patterns, communicate with kindness, ask questions, receive feedback, remain curious in the face of conflict, and choose connection.

I took these foundational skills and spent the years in which I studied in Australia and abroad and the early years of working as a teacher and travelling solo in a quiet observation of the way people behaved and related to one another. Predictable patterns began to emerge, and I started recognising myself in others, and I saw how we are deeply shaped by the intersecting contexts of our historical, physical, and social environments. This changed the way I taught language and history for many years after, until my curiosity started shifting into consent education and wellbeing.

Around this time, I started working with clay. I came to learn through its metaphors that how we approach challenges in creativity mirrors how we learned to approach challenges in life. Clay reveals the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and highlights how those stories influence the ways we act and react. At the same time, it invites us to change those narratives and choose how we want to respond, leaning in with curiosity to new stories and new growth. It is not the end product but the process - of learning, un-learning, and re-learning - that matters most for re-wiring our brains and regulating our nervous systems.

When I transitioned from mainstream education systems into teaching in a flexible learning centre, I found myself working in an environment that had consent woven through its entire framework, intentionally shaped so by the lineage of workers who were passionate advocates for radical inclusion. I found myself connecting with a diverse cohort of young people who had been marginalised and disenfranchised from society, shaped by experiences of complex trauma, homelessness, and systemically affected by injustice. I found myself learning, for the first time, how to have uncomfortable conversations. And while I have received training in Collaborative Problem Solving, Non-violent Communication Strategies, Mental Health First Aid, Trauma-Informed and Reflective Practices - none of these come close to the experiential learning that comes from a humbling conversation with a young person who is not afraid to be honest.

Through the generosity of time spent with these young people, I have learned the humility to walk alongside as a fellow learner - holding complexity with curiosity instead of judgement - and centre every person I meet as the expert of their own life.

And this is where it circles back to the question, ‘how did you learn to do what you do?”, to which I will often respond, ‘from uncomfortable conversations like this, with courageous people like you’.