The Story of Me
Reflecting on Identity
Welcome to the first page where I reflect on my own identities! You will find my positionality statement below, as well as an initial classroom vision that I had prior to my teaching fellowship. You will also find portals that will take you to other relevant pages corresponding to my identity reflections under specific settings and contexts.
Positionality Statement
Dominic Zhang is a Penn fellow and math faculty member at Northfield Mount Hermon School with a predominantly white student body and faculty. He grew up in a working class family within a racially and ethnically homogenous community in Tianjin, China. At the age of thirteen, due to successes in the family business, Zhang had the privilege to immigrate to the United States. He spent his high school years as an international student in central Pennsylvania, until his parents moved to the states when he started attending Lafayette College. Zhang is a first generation college student who identifies as cis-gender male. He is fluent in English and Mandarin, and has some working ability to communicate in Spanish. His research is informed by a commitment to recognizing diversity and the intersectionality of identities, resilience, as well as advancing student thinking regarding doing mathematics for social justice. Zhang did not imagine himself as a teacher until senior year of college, though growing up, he has always had exposure to teachers in the family. Zhang has had an array of math learning experiences in his life, and he would like to thank all of his math teachers for showing him exactly what (not) to do when teaching students about mathematics.
The first step of building and recognizing resilience is to reflect on one's identities. Reflecting on one's identities entails a lot of things. Under different settings and contexts, a person can hold a variety of different identities. In a later section, I will talk more extensively about how reflecting on one's identities is crucial in building student resilience and in developing their mathematical identities. For now, this main section is divided into three parts.
In the first part, I reflect on my journey before I started teaching at Northfield Mount Hermon School. I will include some of the work that I've done prior to the fall of 2021.
​
In the second part, I reflect on my experience so far at NMH as an evolving educator and as a teaching fellow, how I gained new perspectives, and how I challenged and am continuing to challenge preexisting biases.
​
In the third part, I will reflect on my identity as a graduate student in the University of Pennsylvania Independent School Teaching Residency Program.
​
You can click on one of the buttons below to read more into each part!