Teaching for a Better World with Freeman Poritz

“I think I rely more than anything else on my can-do attitude and my optimism, and the idea that these challenges exist and we can we can look at them and just see the problems or we can look at them and kind of embrace the opportunities they present,” Freeman Poritz said with a smile, thinking back on his time teaching in “a low-resource environment” during his clinical learning experience in a public school in rural Ethiopia. 

At the time, Poritz was working as an English language fellow for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. It was his first placement after an initial stretch of working remotely from his wife’s home country of Bolivia during their engagement. When the time came to make the transatlantic move, the two packed their bags and Poritz began teaching academic writing at Haramaya University while also running professional development workshops for the school’s faculty. 

That double-duty soon became triple-duty as Poritz became part of the local community and started coaching a basketball program for marginalized children. 

Of course, he was also in the process of earning his U.S. teaching license through Moreland University’s TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program. 

Call it quadruple-duty. Call it double-double-duty. Call it what you will but know none of it slowed Poritz down or dampened his enthusiasm for education and zest for life. 

The classes that he filmed himself teaching and submitted for his practicum surprised Poritz’s student teaching instructor, who noted the cultural and environmental uniqueness in everything from how lessons were run to classroom requirements. 

“I felt like it was eye-opening, but it also gave me an opportunity to give back to a community, like to pay it forward in a sense, to work with the community that may not have [otherwise] benefitted from someone with as much experience as I had if it wasn’t for that opportunity to do the clinical through that school,” Poritz said. “That was something that — for me — was really rewarding. I got to work with amazing students. It was just something really, really special.” 

The experience that Poritz brought to the school, too, was unique. 

Education Footprints Through Conflict and Beyond  

Shortly after earning a bachelor’s degree in history and graduating with honors from the University of British Columbia, Poritz began working in logistics for the U.S. Agency for International Development. As a Canadian-American dual citizen, Poritz had spent plenty of time in both countries and saw the opening with USAID as a potential pathway to a career as a diplomat. First, though, the opportunity would take him to the Middle East, the region that was his primary focus as an undergraduate. 

While interesting and rewarding in many ways, the job didn’t provide the tangible results that Poritz was hoping to see. 

“I was working with a humanitarian assistance agency, but I didn’t really get to see the direct impact of my work,” he remembered, “and so that was one of the things that started to draw me, slowly but surely, in the direction of teaching and working directly with students.” 

As someone with a longstanding interest in different cultures, Poritz’s career shift toward teaching students from diverse backgrounds came naturally, and the global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity for him to work from anywhere in the world. It was during this time that he explored education as a full-time profession, exploring Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) from Bolivia, where he and his wife have since returned and welcomed their daughter into the world. 

Soon, though, Poritz will make his way to the Middle East again, as part of the U.S. State Department’s English Language Programs’ specialist project where he’ll work with a group of other dedicated educators to “design a youth peacebuilding curriculum for Israeli Jewish and Arab high school students” — a project that is slated to be finalized in summer 2025 and will serve as a major milestone in Poritz’s commitment to bridging divides through the power of learning, open dialogue, and cooperation. 

“[The curriculum] will hopefully be used in Israeli high school classrooms, and I’m trying to do my small part in kind of conflict mitigation and mediation and using education as a tool to bring disparate groups together,” he said thoughtfully, noting his optimism for the effort. 

Poritz is uniquely positioned to help lead a project of this scope. Having previously lived and worked in Israel while on assignment with USAID, he earned a master’s degree in conflict resolution and mediation from the University of Tel Aviv. Poritz also currently works with two nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that specifically focus on peacebuilding initiatives and multicultural relations within the country. 

From Middle Eastern Logistics to “Soft Diplomacy” in the Classroom 

Poritz has always sought ways to bring communities together, so it is no surprise that his educational philosophy blends the lessons of diplomacy with the day-to-day efforts of teaching. He credits a pivotal turning point in his teaching career, though, to Moreland University. 

While living in South America, Poritz was searching for an educator certification program that would allow him to earn his U.S. teaching license without having to relocate to North America full-time. That’s when he found the perfect fit: Moreland’s TEACH-NOW Teacher Preparation Certificate Program, a 100% online experience designed for adult learners and career changers. 

The built-in flexibility of TEACH-NOW was perfect for Poritz, allowing him to pause his program while making the move from Bolivia to Ethiopia and adjusting to his new surroundings and finding a school where he could complete his student teaching. 

“It was really, really great to have that freedom,” he remembered. 

Understandably, the international perspective and global cohort model were also two of the more notable features of the program for Poritz. As he described it: 

“I found the modules to be very relevant to teaching in kind of a high-tech international environment, and I really enjoyed a lot of the teachers [and] instructors who were based all over the world [because] it was really a great opportunity to connect and to network and to meet different people.” 

Building Meaningful Impact Globally 

Poritz’s journey from logistics expert to peacebuilding teacher shows the transformative ripple effect of education, as his impact on personal, community, and international relations demonstrates how teaching can shape lives far beyond the classroom. 

If you’re ready to make a meaningful career change, take the first step toward becoming a licensed teacher with Moreland’s fully online teacher certification and master’s degree programs that can help prepare you to lead, teach, and make a difference anywhere in the world. You can complete your free application in less than 15 minutes!