News Archives: Connected to This Land, People and Place
Saturday, October 21st, 2023
Nikita Stamp, Indigenous Community Impact Award recipient.
Connection is an enduring theme in Nikita Stamp’s life. Her childhood was spent on her family’s farm in Pipestone Creek, and from her earliest beginnings, she has felt deeply connected to and appreciative of the people, land and water of the Peace region. As it often does, her sense of connection has fostered a commitment to giving back, and these two personal drivers, combined with a great respect for the exchange and passing of knowledge, make her an ideal recipient for this year’s Indigenous Community Impact Award.
Having achieved her Red Seal certification in Hairstyling and enjoying the aspect of teaching those newer to the trade, Nikita decided to augment her education and enrolled in NWP’s Teacher Education North (TEN) collaborative degree program. The TEN Program is a generalist degree from K - 12 and prepares students to teach in northern communities. Nikita was especially drawn to the program thanks to its focus on Indigenous Studies. Even at that stage, she knew that she would be staying in the region and wanted to learn as much as she could about the communities and people with whom she would eventually be working.
When asked why she became a teacher, Nikita explains, “I grew up in a household of understanding. One that placed a high regard on the passing of knowledge and education. At the same time, we grew up covered in the dirt, and I learned and wanted to pass on the value of that as well.” Nikita is currently teaching science, biology and cosmetology at Beaverlodge High School (where she herself went as a student.) She says the best part of her job is seeing the students discover new things and helping them understand how the big ideas put forward in the curriculum impact and connect to their day-to-day experience.
A large percentage of the student population at Beaverlodge High School identify as Indigenous, First Nations or Metis, and Nikita takes every opportunity she can to learn more about her students’ communities and culture, and further her ability to connect with them on that level.
“I am continually working to deconstruct the colonialized ideas that I was raised within, both in terms of community and science. The more I learn, the more I recognize how limited my knowledge was and is, and how much I have to learn from the elders around me and from my students themselves.”
To this end, Nikita has started to learn Cree Y dialect, a daunting task but one that opens the door to further connection with her students. She’s initiated her Masters of Art Interdisciplinary Study with a dual focus in ‘Canada, The North and The Globe’ and Cultural Studies. She’s also become enthusiastically involved in the West County Watershed Society. And, perhaps most importantly, she is open to continually learning more, being humbled and changing her approach and perspective to be less one-sided and more informed by the traditional way of knowing.
A great example of this is in her recent re-conceptualizing of a classroom activity where inspired by the Medicine Box initiative, she had intended to grow sage as part of a garden project. After a conversation with an elder about the project, however, she realized that her original plan was misplaced. “I came to understand how much I have to learn and how I was, despite my best efforts, taking a colonial approach to the project.” She will now be growing wild roses, saskatoons and strawberries, and teaching her students about how she came to identify these are the right way forward.
Having only started teaching in 2019, Nikita has ample time to continue learning and making an impact through her commitment to bettering the lives of her students and supporting the community that raised her and that she intends to have raise her family. We congratulate Nikita on being awarded the Indigenous Community Impact Award and are proud to call her one of our own.
Watch Nikita talk about her connection to NWP.
