An Uncommon Teacher

If there’s a word that describes the career path of Kirk Pastre ’11, it is uncommon. After all, it’s not often a Southern California boy ends up at Moravian University in Bethlehem and then in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn. But Pastre, who teaches 7th and 8th grade math at Uncommon Schools, where the mission statement is to close the achievement gap and prepare students from low-income communities to graduate from college, wouldn’t have it any other way.

By Elizabeth Shimer Bowers

“At 32, I don’t see myself doing anything besides teaching middle school math for the rest of my career,” says Pastre. “I’m a little quirky and silly, and I find that holds very well with middle schoolers.”

Pastre’s first taste for teaching came from semesters student teaching at Nitschmann Middle School and Liberty High School in Bethlehem while he was a history major at Moravian. “Both of those experiences fueled my desire to teach—I still have a Nitschmann Lions T-shirt that I rock,” he says.

But Pastre’s trajectory really crystallized following three tragedies in his life. “Over the course of six months, my roommate from study abroad was shot and killed, a student I coached passed away, and a guy I grew up with was also the victim of a shooting,” he recalls. “I started doing a lot of thinking about myself, and for the first time I recognized my privilege as a straight, white male from an upper-middle-class neighborhood.”

So he decided to immerse himself in a different environment. “I had to get outside of my bubble. By teaching in Brownsville, I’ve been able to put myself in other people’s shoes,” he says. “Not a day goes by that I don’t learn something from one of my students or their families.”

Another reason Pastre decided to start his teaching career in Brooklyn at Uncommon Schools, which also has 55 schools across the Northeast, was the mentoring. “Anyone who has taught or knows a teacher recognizes that the first year is brutal,” he says. “The coaching at Uncommon is really good, and I’ve benefited from it tremendously.”

Now, six years in, Pastre calls himself “a grizzled vet.” Most teachers in New York City get out of teaching altogether within their first five years. He admits his days aren’t always easy, but he loves coming in to work.

“It is so much fun. Every day is a new opportunity to learn from and build relationships with our kids.” The other day, one of his students’ mothers asked him when he is going to be “Principal Pastre.” His response: “Never.”

“That’s not something I ever want to do,” he adds. “I want to be in the classroom teaching, because I love kids.”