"Before educators with culturally diverse classrooms bring mindfulness to their students, it is imperative that they not only build a personal mindfulness meditation practice, but they must also dive into how to personally approach their students through the lens of equity. “For meditation in schools to reap social emotional benefits without undermining equity and cultural competency, a more responsive—and responsible—approach is necessary. Ideally such an approach is two-pronged: One, educators must acknowledge their own biases and adopt pedagogical practices that acknowledge and challenge systemic inequities; and, two, they must hone their own mindfulness practice before bringing it into the classroom.” (Alice Pettway, Teaching Tolerance, Issue 57 Fall 2017)

• Our own mindfulness practices can help with the process of dismantling our own racial biases
• Practices that help students calm their responses could pose the danger of masking systemic problems of racism and bias. It is imperative that we make sure we are not asking students to be “okay” with injustices by calming emotions. Instead we can teach them how to calm emotions and access the reasoning part of the brain in order to effectively handle when things are not okay (respond versus react).