With this article, we trace how specific pedagogical techniques can help pre-service teachers connect abstract topics related to international education policy to their own experiences and those of their future student populations. Currently, there is an increased focus in teacher education, at least discursively, on understanding issues related to equity and social justice pertaining to student access, achievement, and success. However, the vast majority of teachers who are initiated into U.S. classrooms have been trained in a neoliberal system that favors inherently inequitable market-based policies, thus making it difficult for them to understand the influences of these engendered policies on the student populations they teach. Leveraging the notion of hooks' "engaged pedagogy," we explore how the use of mindful abstraction techniques help our pre-service teachers better understand the implications of education policy measures, both neoliberal and social progressive in nature, for diverse student populations to liberate them from the inherent biases that come from growing up in a neoliberal system. Specifically, we present a case study of an undergraduate International Education course wherein students work collaboratively to develop hypothetical school systems that address real-world educational issues in both developed and developing nation contexts.