Andrew, you raised a very valid point that we are all unique with infinite, unmatched worth. This observation quickly invalidates the mechanism of clustering for judging people. Thanks!

Hi Ray! I think teachers have key roles to promote respectful communications by treating students equally, establishing teamwork projects and sharing personal stories with emphasis on inclusion and diversity.

Setareh joon, thanks for your comment. As we discussed before, such cultural improvements are significantly slow yet definitely rewarding. We need to patiently invest time and energy to communicate with each other to build a diverse community full of peace and respect.

Thanks for your elaborate comment.! You mentioned a subtle novel point related to the cognitive science of learning. While I am not an expert in this field, I think our brain naturally learns about unknowns by clustering them and extracting their features. I agree with you that this process is not harmful in general, but becomes totally absurd when applied for making prejudgments.

Communication is absolutely the most respectful way to learn from different cultures, identify with people from diverse backgrounds and finally acknowledge them as an individual humankind.

Hi Sara, sorry for the late reply to such a thoughtful comment. You’re right, these issues are gaining more traction within the academic world. Do we risk fundamental needs to complete hefty requirements of a degree? For research? In prior generations it was expected — but now we are in a different world with similar stresses that have grown to a higher standard with little to no change (physical, mental, financial, familial, professional, etc.).

What is even better is mindfulness encourages us to reflect and asks questions and have the ability to be open to the answers we received (to then reflect once more). It is my hope that it’ll be a way to allow for change to happen without much consequence within the academic world.

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Thanks Rathsara! Many of us from diverse communities have faced this challenge of switching back and forth from the “autopilot” to the “manual” mood. I think it is essential for us to realize such two moods exist, and then learn how to deal with them properly.

Thanks for reply Drew! I will keep your advice in mind. My time in industry (not really mentioned in the post) and academia have given me a lot of insight on how to best live my life. As you put it, life and our internal reward system change given the stage of our lives. Among my peers, I am a young 25 year old who is just scraping the potential on how to purse my goals as a future educator — and be there a long time. Again, thanks for your comment and I hope you are thriving with the freedom and autonomy you’ve earned :).

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