Moving beyond polite correctness: Practicing mindfulness in the diverse classroom

Much of the diversity work on college campuses has focused on training multi-culturally competent teachers and on transforming the curriculum to embody multiculturalism. Nevertheless, a gap remains between conceptual understandings of diversity work and teachers' abilities to respond to challenging moments of encounters with difference. Drawing on her own experience, Barbara Vacarr analyzes a pivotal and tension-filled moment Of encounter that took place in a graduate course examining the dangers of remaining silent in the face of others' oppression. The author suggests that multicultural competence requires leaving behind the elevated position of teacher and confronting one's own fear of vulnerability and ineptitude. Vacarr's experience with the practice of Buddhist meditation provides a strategy for entering both the interpersonal encounter of the classroom and an intrapersonal encounter with oneself.