Building Resilient Mathematicians
Mathematical identity: "dispositions and deeply held beliefs that students develop about their ability to participate and perform effectively in mathematical contexts and to use mathematics in powerful ways across the contexts of their lives.” (Aguire and Mayfield-Ingram, 2013, p.14)
A Fitting Tale of Resilience
On September 15th, 2022, I, along with the entire student and faculty body at NMH, went out into the wild for our annual tradition, Mountain Day.
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A handful of faculty members, including me, was in charge of leading the senior class hike over 3000 ft up Mount Monadnock -- the second most hiked mountain in the world.
It was most seniors' first time hiking Monadnock, and same for me. The entire hike took about five hours, and greatly tested our resilience. We just kept climbing up and up. "We are almost there", someone said every 20 minutes.
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At the peak of Monadnock, we were able to see the city of Boston, some 70 miles away. It was all worth it.
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At the beginning of our journey here, I do not offer a complete definition of resilience. It is something that we will come to understand together. Rather, I offer you a working definition for mathematical identity. Our starting point is simple, resilience is and must be inextricably linked to one's understanding of identity.
Resilience is many things. At first glance, it means not giving up or having a growth mindset. But it is so much more. It's a constant theme in the two years that I have spent at Northfield Mount Hermon, and it is central in and for my work as an educator.
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To me, having resilience is consisted of three parts:
1. having a good understanding of the self through reflections,
2. embracing the glory of the mathematical struggle, and
3. finding the empowerment and purpose within oneself to better the world.
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My work, then, is to tell my stories here. Stories about how resilience manifested in my own teaching and learning experiences in the last few years, as well as how I helped and empowered my students to see themselves as resilient mathematicians.
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Resilience is the quality that allows someone to be unaffected by results, a will that focuses your attention on your progress, your journey, and not the destination. In the context of doing math, I believe that it can be interpreted in many ways, but the most important definition to me is to never be discouraged by difficulties. All of this in our classroom could be getting excited to learn new material as opposed to complaining before the class even began.
Nico Zhang
Student Thoughts
Resilience is a quality of someone who, however long it takes or whichever methods are used, will reach a final result they are happy with–and will continue to find ways to improve themselves. In the context of mathematics, I believe it means the ability to reach new heights in one’s understanding and applications of mathematical concepts, even in the face of confusion or challenge... I think that resilience in math is more personal and introspective than it is in those other fields, and is more often about internal achievement and perseverance.
Eunbean Lee
Resilience reminds me of flexibility, the ability of one to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and recover from previous challenges. Having resilience is like being a bouncy ball, force could be exerted on it to alter its shape, but the surface would always rebound... From my experiences of learning math, being resilient could help me try different ways of understanding the concept, dismissing previous interpretations as soon as I realize it is wrong and trying different ways of perceiving them instead.
Amy Dai