07 APR 2025 Spotlight Series #2 2025

In this edition of The Spotlight Series we get to know English and Italian Teacher: Mr Nicholas Musto.

Name:
Nicholas Musto

What is your role at Kolbe?
English and Italian Teacher

What does a typical day at Kolbe look like for you?
I will arrive into the office between 7:30am and 7:45am. After setting up my desk in the exact same manner every single morning, I will usually play some meditative music or nature sounds on my laptop until my colleagues arrive (at which point I wish not to annoy them with my tunes, so I will turn it off). Throughout the day, I will spend most of my teaching time in Building B or Building C, spread across five junior school classes of either English, Italian or SEL. About 60% of the time, in transit between my office and my classroom, I will always turn around and return to my office realising that I have forgotten something (which usually happens as I leave the last step on the set of stairs in Building J). 

What do you love most about working at Kolbe Catholic College?
My offices. Working between an English and Languages office means I get to interact with some of the most genuine, most intellectual, and most heartwarming people I have met in my career.

What is your favourite food?
Spaghetti alla carbonara.

What is your favourite travel destination?
I have seen a multitude of breathtaking places around the world, so picking one would be too difficult. Therefore, I will just mention the place that represents my childhood: Rye beach.

What was your first job?
Mowing lawns with my grandfather.
Technically, I could say Best & Less, Broadmeadows, but that doesn't sound as heartfelt.

What is one of your hidden talents?
Juggling three balls at once while reciting the alphabet backwards.

What do you like to do in your spare time?
Play my accordion.

What inspires you?
Not 'what', but 'who': my grandmother.

If you could teach any subject that doesn't exist, what would it be?
Zoology.
I don't intend this merely as an excuse to take my students on excursions to the zoo, but I want to share my passion for animals with everyone who wants to listen, while making my students understand why I enjoy volunteering at Melbourne Zoo as much as I do. I am also a firm believer that we can learn so much about what it means to be human, by simply watching and understanding all of the creatures that this earth is gifted with. The natural world has so much to teach us about who we are and why we do the things that we do, and it is my dream to inspire our students to put away their phones, open their ears, be still with their thoughts and let nature into their hearts.

How do you elevate your students?
Self-deprecating humour....As well as cool Italian music to kick off our lessons, and random facts about the animals found at our gorgeous Melbourne Zoo.