EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT
nding UnderstaEach Other’s Stories by
Jozi Walker, Director of Diversity and Belonging
As I reflect over my last 15 years in education, I am thankful for all of the unique experiences that each school environment offered and how these experiences helped me to grow into the leader that I am today. I have witnessed firsthand the impact that high performing instruction combined with building meaningful relationships can have on students’ ability to thrive in the classroom and develop into who God has called them to be. More than anything, I have found that the universal need of every child is to feel love and a sense of belonging in their school environment. I am grateful for the way our faculty, staff and students treat one another as family and strive to understand one another’s unique backgrounds and perspectives. I have been blessed to serve as an educator for grades JK12. This includes being a lead teacher, assistant principal and instructional coach. These experiences helped create my love for the school community as a whole and desire to help support and develop both students and teachers at all levels. One of the things I love most about being at CCS is the ability to interact with all grade levels and divisions. It has been a privilege to experience and be a part of our authentic community and witness firsthand the gifts and talents that God has placed in all of our students’ lives. As the director of diversity and belonging, I am committed to helping students build their confidence and competence in multicultural education as well as creating an atmosphere of unity in Christ. 12 CHARLOTTE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL
My desire is to help develop students and teachers on our campus and to affirm who God made them to be. Sometimes that is helping our students rewrite the narrative that they have learned about themselves as we each have our own diverse stories that are needed to complete the body of Christ. We all need to embrace our diverse backgrounds beyond just different skin colors. It is how God has fearfully and wonderfully made us and we need to understand the unique story that God is writing in each of our lives and allow Him to work through our identity, abilities and gifts to make an impact where He has placed us. I have had the privilege of sharing my story and discussing intercultural communication with our upper school world language classes. After I share my story, I encourage them to embrace the elements of their story and their history and identify misconceptions that others have had about them. I am blown away by the depth of their stories and the honesty with which they expressed the assumptions that others have placed on them based on their family history, skin color, socialeconomic status, gender and personality. We discussed that in reality, the depth of who we are is so much bigger that what we see, how those assumptions made us feel and how others feel when we make assumptions about them. My prayer is that our students develop empathy for others and pursue courageous conversations in God-honoring ways.
