How Standing in Front of a Multicultural Classroom Shaped My Approach to Education, Empathy, and Creative Intelligence
- Louise Sommer
- Jun 23, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
I still remember the moment clearly.
I was standing in front of my very first workshop at a college in Australia, about to teach a room filled with adult learners from vastly different cultural and professional backgrounds.
In front of me sat backpackers from France and South America in their twenties, published authors and successful artists from across Australia, emerging entrepreneurs, and three very senior researchers who wanted to learn how to communicate their expertise beyond academia.
As each person introduced themselves, I realised something important: The workshop I had carefully prepared could not simply be delivered to this group. It had to be created with them.
And I had only the length of the introduction round to rethink everything: how I would communicate, how I would connect the material to each participant’s reality, and how I could make every person in the room feel included, capable, and seen.
Because the stakes felt real.
If the workshop failed, it would most likely be my first and last opportunity to teach for that college.
But instead of retreating into rigid slides or over-prepared scripts, I found myself relying on something much deeper:
my lived experience across cultures, identities, and educational systems
and my creative intelligence: the ability to adapt, connect, interpret complexity, and design meaning in real time
So I began listening differently.
I listened not only to what participants said, but also to the fears, insecurities, motivations, and hopes underneath their words.
Some feared speaking publicly. Some worried they were not “academic enough.”Others were highly accomplished professionally, yet deeply uncertain about how to communicate themselves in unfamiliar cultural or educational environments.
I responded by adjusting the workshop dynamically throughout the day.
I changed examples and I reframed explanations. I linked concepts to participants’ own experiences and cultural references. And I slowed down when uncertainty appeared in the room and expanded discussions when curiosity emerged.
Without announcing it, the workshop became something more relational, human, and responsive than what I had originally planned. And something remarkable happened.
People did not simply participate. They opened up.
The room shifted from polite attention to genuine engagement. Participants began encouraging one another, asking vulnerable questions, sharing personal stories, and experimenting creatively without fear of embarrassment or failure.
Most importantly, people who had arrived carrying hesitation and self-doubt began leaving with confidence, clarity, and direction.
Every participant walked away with:
a stronger sense of their own voice and strengths
practical next steps they could immediately apply
an individualised action plan relevant to their goals and context
and the feeling that they had genuinely been seen, respected, and understood
What stayed with me most were not the formal evaluations, although those were excellent. It was the honest smiles and 'thank yous' as they left at the end of the day, and deeply personal follow-up emails in the week that followed.
Participants wrote to tell me they finally felt capable of expressing their ideas. Some returned for future workshops. Others shared the projects, creative work, and professional opportunities they pursued afterwards because they had gained confidence during that experience.
That day fundamentally shaped how I understand education - and communication in learning.
It taught me that knowledge is never purely cognitive. Real learning happens through trust, emotional safety, curiosity, connection, and meaning-making.
Teaching is not simply the transfer of information. It is the creative and relational work of building bridges between people, cultures, experiences, and possibilities. Since then, I have gone on to teach far more complex groups, develop curricula, and coach university lecturers and scholars across diverse educational contexts.
But I still carry that first classroom with me. Because it was there, in the uncertainty and complexity of a multicultural learning space, that I fully understood the power of creative intelligence in education.
I realised that my strength was not simply expertise or content knowledge.
It was the ability to read complexity humanely, adapt relationally, and create learning environments where people feel safe enough to grow.
And when that happens, people rise. They begin to shine! And they grow.
Not because they are pressured to perform, but because they feel empowered to participate, contribute, and become more fully themselves. That experience continues to shape both my teaching and my coaching today.
Why This Story Matters in Higher Education
In an increasingly international, multicultural, and emotionally complex higher education landscape, educators need more than subject expertise alone.
They need the ability to:
navigate cultural complexity with sensitivity
build psychologically safe learning environments
communicate across differences
adapt teaching responsively in real time
and support learners as whole human beings, not simply as performers or outcomes
This is the heart of human-centred education. And it is the foundation of the work I now do with university lecturers, researchers, and educators. Educational teaching is the heart of my passion. Wh
Have you ever experienced a moment in teaching where human connection changed the entire learning environment for the better?
I would love to hear your reflections and experiences. Join the conversation on LinkedIn.
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