Teaching is complicated, and is compounded by changes in the education landscape as far as diversity is concerned. This has forced education planners to reconsider the manner in which initial teacher education programs are structured, to meet the needs of the diverse classroom population. This study reports on the experiences of South African university teacher educators, from diverse backgrounds, who facilitated a first-year education module, "The Individual in Context", which relates to the way identity is constructed and, as a result, 'otherness' is perceived. If pre-service teachers are to adjust to the new, diverse university context, they constantly have to navigate and negotiate the university space, while re-evaluating and reconstructing their own perceptions of 'otherness'. The article argues that, in order for the teacher educators to effectively facilitate the module, they, too, had to subject themselves to a soul-searching process of reflection, re-evaluation and reconstruction of their own perceptions of 'otherness'. A narrative methodology was employed to explore how these teacher educators' own identities were constructed, and how this influenced their perceptions of 'otherness'. The findings of the narratives reveal that these teacher educators constantly had to unlearn prior understandings of 'otherness'.