In this episode of the Fueling Creativity podcast, Dr. Cyndi Burnett and Dr. Matthew Worwood speak withGenein Letford, Founder and CEO of CAFFEE Strategies, a top ‘intercultural creative thinking’ professional development training organization that trains employees to unleash their innovative thinking and create sustainable, organizational inclusion strategies. Tune in to learn the fundamentals of cultural competence and Intercultural Creativity™ along with neuroscience-backed tips for teachers on helping kids grow their cultural competency.

As a trainer on creative thinking and Intercultural Creativity™, Genein has inspired and led many to reconnect to their creative abilities and produce innovative ideas for an inclusive workspace.

Genein shares her thoughts on the impact of knowing your students’ cultural value as well as how to help students become aware of their value and their cultural capital. She highlights the powerful role of emotions and storytelling in learning, then breaks down a few of the gems from her book, The 7 Gems of Intercultural Creativity, including empathetic imagination and perspective shifting. Plus, Genein sheds light on how her work as an educator has inspired her role as a mother.

Genein’s Tips for Teachers and Parents:

1. Share last. Your perspective may skew the perspective of the students, so encourage them to share their views and ideas first and then share yours afterwards.
2. Say “thank you” to students who share their answers, ideas, and views.
3. There are miracles in the metaphors. Bring metaphors into your day, your lessons, and your meetings and have fun with it.
4. Arts are key. Artistry helps grow creativity.
5. Observation is also key. You can’t be creative if you have no data to be creative with, so create activities that combine sensory information, for example, going outside and listening to the sounds of nature.

“Knowing that the cultural capital and the cultural experiences that the children are coming in with is key. That is gold because the brain doesn’t learn by just throwing new information to it, the brain learns through integration, by integrating new information to already learned information. And so, if the teacher or the educator… doesn’t know what the child already knows and what is important to the child, that integration is low.”                       

 – Genein Letford