Because the English learners' (ELs) population is growing in the United States, teacher candidates should be provided with experiences that prepare them to effectively teach and empower linguistically/culturally diverse students. Teacher candidates should be provided with opportunities to learn skills that engage ELs in mathematics. In this article the authors present three lived experiences and analyze how these experiences disempowered/empowered ELs in mathematics classrooms. The first experience reflects a situation of a high school EL student in which she perceived a competition with her teacher. The second experience reveals the unintentional message a bilingual elementary schoolteacher communicated when teaching a mathematics lesson. The last experience portrays the implementation of a critical math/social studies day in an elementary school that was intended to provide support to all students. However, after a critical reflection on these experiences we identify our failure of empowering ELs. The authors invite the readers to be aware of ELs' emotional and cognitive needs to really feel empowered in the mathematics classroom.