Paul Ward

Paul Ward is a recent graduate of Columbia University in New York City, with a bachelor’s degree in American history.  Paul’s undergraduate studies focused on 18^th-century revolutionary America, with an emphasis on constitutional law and nation building.  He has also been studying Italian for the past two years and hopes to continue learning it during and after his Fulbright grant.

Paul began his teaching career with the New York City Urban Debate League in 2019 and has been interested in education ever since.  As both a teacher and administrator, Paul helped the largest debate league in New York put on weekly tournaments that involved thousands of students from across the city.  A debater since high school, Paul enjoys discussing world news and trends, and tries to implement these exercises into his lessons whenever he can.

In the area of education access, Paul participated as a teaching fellow with the nonprofit, Breakthrough Collaborative.  At Breakthrough, he managed his own daily classroom and created a unique social studies curriculum for his class of middle school students in the Boston public school system.  Paul’s curriculum challenged students to reflect on the American Dream and their role as citizens, and he is excited to personally reflect on these topics from a different perspective while abroad.

Outside of the classroom, Paul is interested in music and sports.  He has played bass in jazz and rock bands for more than 10 years and is eager to bring this expertise abroad to teach others about the role of music in American culture.  He is also an avid runner and completed his first half-marathon this April.  In India, he looks forward to staying up late to watch his favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees, play live back home.

Paul’s grant period in India will be the first time he has ever lived abroad, and he cannot wait to meet lots of interesting people and to see the world from a new perspective.