‘Building Community for Generations to Come’

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• Jen Jordan - [email protected]

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Alison Black '05, '09, '16, built her academic career woven by the thread that inclusion, belonging and connection are just as essential to learning as any academic intervention. A continuing lecturer in UC San Diego's Department of Education Studies and the founder of UC San Diego's Jewish Staff and Faculty Tritons Association, she shares in her own words how she has spent her life turning that belief into action

I come from a long line of public servants. I am proud of my family's contributions to the fabric of UC San Diego's community in its earliest days. My parents Barbara and Norman Black met at UC San Diego - they're both Revelle graduates - and my grandfather Norman Baily was one of the founding medical school faculty leaders, chief of the division of radiological physics and engineering at UC San Diego's School of Medicine from 1968 until 1988. Growing up in Sacramento, we would sometimes visit San Diego, and my parents would take my brothers and me on walks around campus.

I came to UC San Diego in 2001 as an undergraduate student in Eleanor Roosevelt College; I was an International Studies major because I wanted to make a difference in the world. After graduating in 2005, I followed in my mom's footsteps and started working as a classroom inclusion aide. I fell in love with education. I came back to UC San Diego for my master's and teaching credential, and my EDS teacher education program mentors were such a huge influence on my equity-centered, anti-bias philosophy and teaching skill set.

After several years of teaching middle school, I returned to what felt natural: coming back to UC San Diego for additional learning through the Education Studies Doctoral program in Teaching and Learning. For those next four years, I was teaching middle school full-time and taking evening classes several nights a week, getting up on the weekends in early hours to read, write and work on my dissertation.

Supporting Success and Belonging in the Classroom

As a teacher, I always thought deeply about the social and relational elements of a classroom and school environment; these things are not separate. They need to be understood and invested in just as heavily as academic interventions.

My doctoral advisor, Alison Wishard Guerra, helped me further formalize a view of education through the lens of how children come to school with multiple identities and worlds that they're a part of, and how systems and educators create opportunities or barriers for bridging those connections. That can have a big impact on student success and belonging.

One of the largest populations in the school of study for my dissertation at the time was the military community. Every adolescent has multiple identities, as well as many developmental transitions they need to worry about and navigate. Military kids also have the additional aspects of moving often, worrying about a loved one's safety, and family separation. I started learning about how I could better support my own students and I began thinking more deeply about their peer connections.

The students who participated in focus groups shared many of their challenges with me, but they often reframed them as strengths because of, not in spite of, these challenges. For example, they move a lot, so they told me they had to have social skills because even if they are shy, they had to learn how to make new friends at a new place. San Diego is one of the biggest regions in terms of the number of military families, active duty and veterans, and many of these students are attending civilian schools, which are not necessarily all equipped to support them. Our military families are just as diverse as our general population. What I learned from youth during this research made me even more committed to supporting the many vulnerable groups attending our local schools that may not be getting adequate attention or feeling a sense of belonging.

Teaching the Teachers

When I finished my doctorate, a job opened here, and I'm honored I was offered the position after a competitive selection process. Now I mentor graduate students getting their master's and teaching licenses, and I also teach undergraduate seniors who are thinking about becoming teachers. A majority of them end up in our credential programs via this pathway.

As a society, we really put teachers through the wringer. The transition from being an undergraduate student and thinking about hypothetically teaching to then taking on that role is huge.

But new teachers have chosen one of the most noble professions. If you're going to make it in this job, which is very hard yet rewarding, you're going to need a strong network. You're going to need people to support you in the classroom, hopefully next door if possible, and at home who know nothing of teaching who can just be there for you.

You're going to need intentional connections, support and belonging.