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For Nicole Pigeau, World Indigenous Studies Education (WISE) student and professor at Humber Polytechnic, love is at the heart of meaningful education. As Nicole begins to research how Anishinaabe teachings of love might transform education, she is simultaneously making and welcoming acts of love through the WISE program and her career.
One of Nicole’s favourite elements of the WISE program is the love it has fostered among program members. She has endless gratitude for the conversations and conference visits she has had the pleasure to share with her WISE cohort. “It’s just become my new family – my Indigenous family,” she expresses. “We are a community who helps each other be successful. What more could you ask for? Especially going back to university in my forties, it’s been a welcoming environment. I’ve been allowed to be humble and ask for help.”
Nicole emphasizes how the WISE program has enriched both her professional and personal life through relationships. One of the program members, who has become like a sister to Nicole, has extended an invitation for Nicole to work on one of her education projects. “She’s doing culture-based camps, and I’m going to go for the month of July and be one of her instructors,” Nicole reveals. “So I mean, that’s pretty big.”
Beyond Nicole’s life as a student, the relationships she has built throughout her career have also made an incredible impact on her life. After being welcomed as a teacher by a community in Northern Saskatchewan, Nicole has never forgotten the love they showed her and the love she showed in return.
“We were about five hours from the grocery store,” Nicole recalls. “It was a remote drive-in community. And so, if you needed anything, all you had to do was ask somebody and it was like a game of telephone. There would always be somebody who was out of town who could pick up that thing that you needed. Like, when I was out of town, I picked up computers that were being fixed; I picked up parts for snowmobiles that needed to be fixed… It was just that sense of helping each other out. And then I got to carry that on to any other community that I went to.”
Now, as a professor at Humber Polytechnic, Nicole is devoted to embedding love in her programming through land-based and play-based learning. “Last week, we made cedar tea,” Nicole shares, “so the ECEs learned about ethical harvest and offering of tobacco to the cedar tree to harvest some cedar. We talked about the water and how we’re all water people because we were in the uterus for nine months… We’re all people of water. We’re water carriers; water is our first medicine.”
In the winter months, Nicole’s lessons are rooted in the winter season. “We had a knowledge keeper come in and tell us the story of how Waboose got his white tail, and how that’s a story that can only be told when there is snow on the ground. So, we were outside in the snow with snowshoes, learning from a knowledge keeper.”
As Nicole embarks on her journey as a researcher, she hopes to discover the keys to embedding the Anishinaabe teaching of love in teacher education. “We always love our students; we are always doing acts of love every day as a teacher,” Nicole expresses. “So, how do we get that teaching of love to our teachers so that they are safe enough to learn alongside their students?”
Nicole recognizes the fear teachers often feel about teaching Indigenous knowledge when they are not Indigenous themselves. She advises teachers to embrace their learning journey, and take opportunities to build reconciliation: even small actions can make a big difference.
“You could see how many trees there are in your school neighbourhood – you could go onto the Ojibwe people’s dictionary and look up what the words are, depending on where you are – the Algonquin words, the Haudenosaunee words… It seems really insignificant, but those are huge acts of reconciliation. And you don’t need an Indigenous person to do that,” she suggests. “Maybe do a map of your neighbourhood and instead of doing the local street names, add the Indigenous names. I mean, that’s huge.” While Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers have precious cultural knowledge to share as guests in the classroom, every teacher can incorporate Indigenous education and reconciliation into their teaching.
While Nicole hasn’t completed her journey as a researcher quite yet, she is passionate about the power of land-based and play-based learning. As her students venture off into the world of education, Nicole hopes to see them pass down the wisdom, knowledge, and love they have learned to future generations.
About the Author
Juliette Silveira is a final year Education student at Queen’s University. In 2024, she completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Degree at Queen’s University with a Minor in Dramatic Arts and a Major in English Language & Literature. In July 2025, she will complete her Bachelor of Education degree through the Concurrent Education program. Juliette has spent her time at Queen’s learning to become an Intermediate/Senior Drama and English teacher, and she has focused on Indigenous teacher education through the ITEP program. Passionate about cultivating students’ creativity and critical thinking, Juliette is eager to bring her experience as an actress, musical theatre teacher, creative writer, and literary analyst into her classroom.