Rethinking Learning Podcast

 

 

Chris Pultz, an educator, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar and a Fulbright exchange teacher in Hungary. He has experience teaching in New York City public schools and international schools. He’s worked in Belarus, Turkiye, and Jordan. Chris lives in Istanbul, Turkiye with his wife, Gamze Keskin Pultz. His work with personalized and competency-based learning led him to focus on helping students foster a sense of purpose and belonging. Chris loves designing educational experiences that challenge students and allow them to thrive in a growingly complex world.

Your WHY

It’s evolved over the years, and it will likely continue to evolve, but for now, I would say it is “Helping Students find their why.” As best I can, I try to complement that WHY with my other WHY, which is “To be a loving and supportive husband and father.”

What was it like for you as a child in school?

I grew up in Long Island, New York where I attended public schools in large classes with tracking systems. It was a sports culture, which I enjoyed, but it left other sides of myself underdeveloped. I navigated that as best I could until I got to University.

When did you decide to become an educator?

At University, I volunteered for the Xerox Center for Multicultural Teacher Education. I sat in the back of a class during a vocabulary lesson. I didn’t know it by name then, but I experienced a flow state while identifying problems and imagining possible solutions. I got to work with some students who responded positively to simply seeing someone curious about them. I felt useful. I fed that and decided to do my student teaching in California, surfed every day, and developed competence in the classroom. I felt like one of the lucky ones who’d happily stumbled on what he wanted to do.

Who or what impacted you to change your path?

I returned to the university for my final semester and met with a professor I had for a freshman seminar on Ngugi Wa Thiong’o. My professor’s experiences in Kenya during his sabbatical impacted me. I said I wanted to do what he did, and he suggested I join the Peace Corps. So on graduation day, I told my parents, “Surprise. I’m moving to Madagascar.” I taught there and navigated the initial culture shock–learned a lot more than I taught–and felt the reverse culture shock even harder. My experiences there really turned my understanding of the world upside down.

It looked like you changed paths again. What happened?

I came back to New York and started my teaching career in New York City Public Schools. I enjoyed it, but I lost my father in my first year of teaching and that created another hole. I started a master’s degree in cultural anthropology, trying to keep busy, but also trying to make sense of a lot of what had been scrambled up. My naive thoughts about being a savior in New York started to show. I probably watched too many movies with sages on stage to understand the complexities of teaching, and then schools were pivoting to the trappings of No Child Left Behind.

I started feeling the burnout.

I took a Fulbright teaching exchange to Hungary, taught EAL, and lived an immersed life in a small city on the Romanian border. Loved it. Was offered a second year, but my boss wrote: “Get your ass back to Brooklyn.