Recent events such as the protests in Charlottesville and reactions to President Trump’s attempts to end the DACA program reveal deep divisions in American society. As the world becomes increasingly polarized, boundaries between groups lead to misunderstandings and misrepresentation. Even at Lick-Wilmerding High School, a progressive, diverse community in one of the most liberal towns in the country, the goal of inclusivity can be elusive. Over the course of this five-part series, Coming Together, The Paper Tiger will talk to staff, students, and parents to deepen the larger conversation about what unites and divides us. We will ask: What are the individual journeys we all took to get to Lick? How do teachers experience the climate at Lick in comparison to how students do? How open are we to friendships across various groups? How do we define ourselves? How can we do more to come together as a community?
In the first of a series of interviews, The Paper Tiger sat down with Christy Godinez Jackson, Director of Student Inclusion, Leadership and Civic Engagement, to discuss issues of equity, inclusion, and diversity in the Lick community.
Christy Godinez Jackson on Lick-Wilmerding’s campus.
Liv Jenks: You’re such a respected member of the Lick community. Can you tell me a bit about your journey that brought you to this school and this position?
Christy Godinez Jackson: I started in the admissions office when I was fresh out of college. One of our first charges was to bring in a more diverse student body which meant expanding our reach to Boys and Girls Clubs, summer enrichment programs and public schools, in order to find top students from different communities and give them the opportunity to be students at Lick.
Once they were admitted, we wanted to provide support systems for this new wave of students and families, who were new to the private school experience. My role evolved into Director of Student Inclusion, but I was still working part-time in admissions. Then I started overseeing the other leadership roles, clubs and Student Council. At that time, we had a director for the Center of Civic Engagement, and Eric Temple asked if I would be interested in merging my inclusion role with the other full-time position. I’m always thinking about leadership, inclusion, and the civic engagement aspect of our community.
LJ: What made you decide to focus your career on civic engagement?
CGJ: Lick is a school with vast resources, and it would be a shame if we didn’t take those resources and share them with the larger community. The Public Purpose Program cultivates an awareness that we hope our students take with them. If a student leaves Lick with no desire to make this world a better place and give back to their community, then dang, we’ve messed up. But what I’m seeing more and more, is graduates who understand the importance of giving back with their time, treasures or talents.
My passion is really making sure that people are finding ways to give back. If we don’t do our part in this country, we’re seeing it right now, it’s going to be survival of the fittest. Countries and communities that work together and share resources are the most successful and the best to be a part of.
LJ: As the director of student inclusion, can your job ever be fully accomplished?
CGJ: Every year there’s something new to tackle. Schools are cyclical, in the sense that there are new students every year, so we constantly have to repeat the things we’ve done in the past. It would be great if everyone could just get along and be open to difference, but I think that’s a dream.
LJ: Is it human nature to divide ourselves?
CGJ: It’s totally human nature because there’s comfort with surrounding yourself with people that look like you or come from similar backgrounds. It’s something that even I did when I was in college. I remember my dad saying, ‘Look at your phone, how many white friends do you have?’ Well, I didn’t have any and I wasn’t even aware of it. However, once we allow ourselves to care for others and are eager to get to know people different from ourselves, then we find that there are amazing people across all identifiers. What I like to do with people that I disagree with is just ask questions. That’s where empathy comes in. As someone who has Trump supporters in my family, I understand what it likes to love people who have different points of view from me. What I’ve learned over the years is that I may not agree with a person, but I’m not going to hate them. Hate is a strong word and we really have to work past it. The way to love and to accept people is to learn about who they are and share your story with them.
LJ: Do you believe everyone at Lick feels included?
CGJ: I say we’re striving for inclusion. It’s hard to create an environment that’s inclusive for everyone all the time. For example, when we moved to electronic elections for Student Council, we made sure to leave the online survey open until the end of the day, so people who didn’t have phones could jump on a computer at school and complete the survey later in the day. It’s the little things.
I don’t like to say that we’re an inclusive school because then it makes it seem like our job is done. People have to also be careful not to say things like, ‘It’s only Christy’s or Tamisha’s job to make sure we’re an inclusive school.’ It has to be everyone’s job. A teacher once asked me what the school would look like if, when we admitted students and families, we invited them to help make our school inclusive, rather than telling them that their coming to a school that’s already inclusive.
LJ: Given the current climate of political rancor and deep divisions, in what ways does Lick reflect the struggles and divisions taking placing in our country at large?
CGJ: In my opinion, one of the biggest divisions in our community is along socioeconomic status. There are a lot of divisions along race, which make people the most uncomfortable to talk about, but when I look across friend groups, I see socioeconomic divides play out more.
I watched my own brother struggle to fit in at LWHS because he couldn’t afford the lifestyle that many of his classmates had. He couldn’t afford tickets to concerts like Outside Lands or to go to brunch every Sunday with friends. His socioeconomic status directly affected who he was able to hang out with. Socioeconomic status is interconnected with so many other identifiers such as where a student went to middle school, the city they live in, and the educational background of their parents. Seeing these divides in our community raises the question of who has the opportunities to make more money in this country given the access to schools, given the access to better jobs?
LJ: This seems like a critical point to me. Can you say more about the socioeconomic divide?
CGJ: For me, socioeconomic status is an area that I’d like to see Lick continue to have difficult, candid conversations about. I’m consistently trying to emphasize to students who do come from privileged backgrounds that they shouldn’t feel guilty that they have wealth in their family, but that they should have a desire to do something good with it. With privilege comes great responsibility.
I come from a very simple background of caring for others, so I think we also have a tendency, like many progressive institutions, to over-intellectualize everything. I believe the most important part of leadership is empathy. If we don’t go back to what it means to care for each other, then we’re never going to get past these divisions. We have programs like Walk with a Purpose to explore difference and systems of oppression. Although there may always be resistance to programs like Walk With a Purpose, I honestly believe these types of programs are critical to education and reaching a new level of awareness and openness. I can’t even count how many alumni have reached out to me over the years asking for past Walk With a Purpose curriculum or resources. Several of them admitting that as high school students they didn’t understand the value of this work, but have found it so necessary in their adult lives.
LJ: How is Lick working to create a counter-narrative in terms of places where we’re divided?
CGJ: In 2015 we did a climate survey called AIM (Assessment of Inclusivity and Multiculturalism) of alumni, board members, and faculty, and overall people have a great experience here, but those reports also revealed that there is work to be done in how we support students of color and students new to independent schools. One great addition to our community has been the creation of Tamisha’s role. Tamisha Williams, Dean of Adult Equity and Inclusion, is charged with equity and inclusion in the adult community and in the classroom. We began addressing questions like: how do we equip teachers to combat issues of equity occurring in their classrooms every day? How do we work with students who are feeling like they’re not smart enough or feel like they don’t belong?
LJ: And in terms of student experience?
CGJ: The reality is that we have highly motivated kids that come from all walks of life––which makes Lick beautiful––but can also lead to some challenges. For example, imagine having two students that have always thrived in school, but one student is the product of a private school education in San Francisco and the other attended a public school in Richmond. As much as I wish that both schools had equal access to resources, the truth is that many public schools in the Bay Area struggle to make ends meet. I’ve witnessed firsthand students struggle with their transition into a private school through no fault of their own or lack of effort. Its simply that they received a different level of rigor in their middle schools and sometime need to fill in gaps. It’s important that our teachers are able to work with students from different backgrounds and help them realize that they have a lot to learn from one another.
In terms of leadership opportunities, it’s my goal is have enough opportunities for students to feel connected to our community. In recent years, we developed the Pact/Rise mentorship program, which creates more leadership opportunities for students of color. Another program is SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice), because in that same AIM survey, we heard from some white identifying alumni who didn’t know how to be an ally, ot how not to dominate conversations about race. We set up SURJ to provide a space for white students to embrace and to talk about what is means to be an ally and understand white privilege. SURJ is very exciting for me because the more we create opportunities for students to dig a little deeper and think about things like where does racism or bias come from, and not to say that stereotypes won’t ever go away, the more aware we become.
With everything going on in the world with DACA and Hurricane Harvey, for example, we put out opportunities for students to get involved and take initiative. We’re intentionally building moments in the school year when these conversations around race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. can happen in classrooms, advisings, and assemblies. Whether students realize that they’re happening or not is a different story.
LJ: How do we work to make everyone feel included?
CGJ: There’s a lot of work around inclusion that happens behind the scenes. For example, we have an inclusion list that allows us to keep track of which families don’t have internet access and students who need loaner laptops for the year. Before I started working at LWHS, lunch used to be a separate expense, but now it’s rolled into tuition, so that everyone can enjoy lunch and not feel excluded because they don’t have the means to buy school lunch. In addition, this year we have officially moved to only hosting formals at venues with gender neutral restrooms. Every year we have to rethink how can we be a more inclusive school across all identifiers.
We want students to make it their school, if a student just comes here and doesn’t engage with the community, they’re going to have a difficult time acclimating to the school. To get students involved, 200-300 new leadership positions have been created for students in the last five to seven years, whether that’s tutoring, being a Peer Connect Mentor, or leading a club. Interestingly, the year before last, our data was showing us that the students taking on the most leadership roles at Lick were females. Another interesting statistic, is that students of color from charter schools are also thriving in leadership roles. We’re beginning to analyze data to see how we can modify and improve programs.
LJ: Does inclusivity manifest differently in Lick’s classrooms versus in social settings?
CGJ: They’re very interconnected. If a student is struggling to feel connected in their classroom that plays out to how they interact with people socially, whether they’re being down on themselves or whether they’re isolating themselves.
Ultimately, classroom teachers play a huge role because they’re with the students for the majority of the day, and as someone who teaches in the Spring, I see it all the time. I’ll have a very diverse class and I’ll watch how certain kids avoid working with one another. As a teacher, I see it as my responsibility to pull kids aside if they’re acting entitled or dominating the classroom because there has to be healthy classroom culture.
It’s clear that the issues of the world are playing out in the classroom, and our teachers are constantly developing their pedagogy to address them. Just the other day we participated in a faculty meeting where we were asked to reflect on questions such as: How can I interrupt the impact that stereotyping has in my classroom?
I’ll never forget this one time, in a psychology class, a student said something about religion, another taboo topic at this school, like ‘People who believe in God are schizophrenic because they’re obviously making stuff up, right? The response from the class, including the teacher, at that time, was to laugh. Unfortunately, a handful of students walked out of the class that day feeling embarrassed and alienated by their peers. If a student experiences something like this in class, it can often lead to shutting down for the rest of the semester, especially if it’s never addressed. These situations happen more than we’d like them to. Sometimes they get addressed and sometimes not.
LJ: So what do you hope every student at Lick takes with them when they graduate?
CGJ: Because we’re in the Bay Area, a liberal bubble, there’s a tendency to think that we do everything perfectly, but we have to be careful, as a school, not to think that way.
My hope is that the students who graduate Lick have a sense of cultural literacy and push themselves to be more aware of the differences that exist and celebrate those difference instead of being afraid of them. I’ll sit and watch some white students not know if they should come into the Center, a place many students of color describe as a safe place on campus. I challenge both groups, for students of color who hang in the Center: how are you being inclusive? Are you actively bringing people in? Are you being kind when they’re here? For students who don’t feel comfortable hanging out in a large group of students of color, imagine how they feel in a classroom, when they’re the outliers. Put yourself in their position and come hang out in the Center. Eventually, you’ll start to feel more comfortable. Until these two groups start to take risks, we’re going to continue to see that segregation. I often tell our affinity groups that there are people in this community that could be your best friend that you might never talk to just based on the fact that they look different from you.
