Dr. Jonathan Pitt has been honoured this year by Nipissing University, which awarded him the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award recognizes the achievements of faculty members with an outstanding and exceptional record of teaching. Dr. Pitt will receive the honour during Nipissing University’s convocation ceremony this Thursday around 9 a.m.
“It’s an incredible award to receive,” Dr. Pitt said, noting that he’s grateful for the faculty before him who inspired him and his students “who have enabled me to get this far. I share it with them.”
Dr. Pitt is Indigenous with Anishinaabek and Haudenosaunee roots, and he teaches Indigenous Studies at the university, along with Indigenous language and education classes. He’s very involved with the community, and he’s known for bringing his curriculum to life by taking students onto the land and immersing them into natural surroundings.
He explained how this is Akinoomaage, which translates to land as teacher, the land is teaching us, learning from the land. It derives from the word Aki, which means land. The land connects him to his cultural heritage and teachings, which he passes on to students.
However, he also learns from them as well. It’s one of the highlights for him, engaging and sharing knowledge with his students. “The classes I teach are Indigenous focused, and one of the things that I find really beautiful about teaching those courses is you get to teach Indigenous people from all over Turtle Island.”
Students from the far-North and all over have found their way to his class, “and you get to bring together and share the knowledge that isn’t always available in other settings.” Indigenous knowledge is specific to geographic locations, he noted, so when people come together from different First Nations, a wealth of knowledge comes with them.
Language is but one aspect of the differences that can come together. Pitt pegs himself “as a growing and learning speaker,” working to improve his Ojibwe – spelled Anishinaabemowin in the language, or Nishnaabemwin, if you’re speaking the Nbisiing Nishnaabe dialect from Nipissing Frist Nation.
“Dialects are so important in Anishinaabemowin,” Dr. Pitt emphasized. “You can tell where a person is from based upon dialect and how people speak. Nipissing First Nation is very different than the dialect of Manitoulin Island.”
Fluent language speakers are few and far between, and programs like the ones Dr. Pitt are involved with are paramount to maintaining cultural knowledge. “Language is so important to preserve, because the knowledge of the land is often within the words themselves.”
See: Nipissing First Nation preserves culture through Nishnaabemwin language classes
Returning to the land is appreciated by Dr. Pitt’s students as well, especially given our tech-obsessed culture, the earth reminds us to wind down. “What can you learn from being out on the land?” he asked. “Maybe it’s patience, maybe it’s those skills that you need to also understand yourself – not just what you are but who you are.”
Dr. Pitt is grateful for his award, and he acknowledged some professors who helped him along the way, namely Muriel Sawyer, Terry Dokis, Dr. John Long and Dr. Kris Kirkwood, “who were all role models for me.”
“They gave me opportunities and I will always be grateful to them for their support in so many ways.”
Surely, there are many students out there now who feel the same way about Dr. Pitt.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.