Sarasota teacher of the year: Promoting learning for learning's sake.
Dennis Pinna has visited 53 countries and six continents. In Rome, he interned at the Belgium Embassy and later worked as a lobbyist. In Milan, Italy’s financial capital, he worked in finance. But this year’s Sarasota County Schools High School Teacher of the Year ultimately followed his true passion: teaching. And that has led him a long way from home.
Growing up in Rome, where he was born, Pinna had early exposure to education. His mother, an Italian-American from Brooklyn who married an Italian man, ran a school teaching English as a second language. Pinna helped his mom around the school and even began teaching some classes when he had the time. From a young age, he saw teaching in action and learned naturally by just doing it, and by teaching learners of all ages.
These formative experiences helped guide Pinna back into the classroom after working in finance, and he returned to Rome from Milan to begin teaching fifth-grade math and science at the American Overseas School of Rome. It was there that he met his wife, an American from New Jersey, and in 2017 the two decided to move to the United States, where they settled in Sarasota.
Having arrived during the middle of the school year, Pinna started substitute teaching and then worked as an instructional support teacher at Gocio Elementary and an after-school teacher at McIntosh Middle School. That summer, he was hired at North Port High School to teach social studies.
While certain aspects of school in America, such as pep rallies and after-school clubs, seemed foreign to Pinna, the classroom instruction felt familiar, and he has thrived. Since starting at North Port, in addition to becoming chair of the social studies department, he has taught World History, Economics, and AICE International History, classes perfectly suited to his diverse background.
As a lobbyist, Pinna learned about the importance of relationships and their power to fuel change. As Pinna said, “History is all about relationships,” and to make this point tangible he uses simulations, where students represent different countries during important historical times. They must take positions, negotiate, and find solutions.
Working in finance, he saw the effects of economic policy and gained a deeper understanding of financial markets and macroeconomics. He teaches how interconnected history and economics are, how the economy shapes people’s lives, and, more practically, how important it is to budget, save, and invest.
While earning a CELTA certificate through Cambridge International Education to grow as an ESOL teacher, he had to study Hungarian so he could experience firsthand how it feels to learn a foreign language and to feel lost. That experience alone taught him so much about the importance of context in education and it informs the way he uses images, sounds, and countless other cues to ensure his students grasp complex concepts and historical events.
As a world traveler who has spent extended time in Canada and Australia and has lived in Italy and America, Pinna explores the material through a lens of experience with the places and the cultures that he teaches.
Beyond making him a better teacher, Pinna’s experiences reflect his deeply held belief that students need to find their voice, think critically, accept multiple viewpoints and “understand society and how it works.”
He wants his students to learn for themselves, to learn for the intrinsic value that knowledge and critical thinking bring, not for external validation that comes with earning a good grade.
“What I want them to learn is not to do the work for me, but to do for themselves,” Pinna regularly tells his students. “What I care about is that you truly learn and that you can then bring what you learn into the real world and make a positive change.”
Over Thanksgiving break, Pinna, his three children, and his wife traveled to Mexico. While he has visited Mexico before, it was a chance for his children to experience another place rich with its own culture, customs, economy, and history. Just as he does every day in his classroom, Pinna shared with his children the joys of exploring foreign places and meeting new people, so that they can better understand and appreciate the complex, rich, and varied world in which we live.
About the Education Foundation of Sarasota County
The Education Foundation sponsors the Ignite Education Teacher of the Year Award Celebration in partnership with Sarasota County Schools. For 35 years, the Education Foundation of Sarasota County (EdFoundationSRQ.org) has supported students and teachers because education transforms lives. As a champion for life readiness, the Education Foundation provides personalized, comprehensive resources and relationships so that students can find their purpose and progress intentionally through their K – 12 schooling. Its mission is to enhance the potential of students, promote excellence in teaching, and inspire innovation in education, guided by strategic philanthropy.
This year’s Ignite Education Teacher of the Year Award Celebration will be held at the Venice Community Center on December 13, beginning at 5:00 p.m. Learn more about the events and find tickets here: edfoundationsrq.org/ignite/.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota teacher of the year: Promoting learning for learning's sake.
