Teacher Man: A Memoir | 
| Author: Frank Mccourt
Publisher: Scribner
Category: Book
List Price: $26.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  237 reviews
Sales Rank: 9606
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 0743243773
Dewey Decimal Number: 371.10092
EAN: 9780743243773
Publication Date: November 15, 2005
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Amazon.com Review
For 30 years Frank McCourt taught high school English in New York City and for much of that time he considered himself a fraud. During these years he danced a delicate jig between engaging the students, satisfying often bewildered administrators and parents, and actually enjoying his job. He tried to present a consistent image of composure and self-confidence, yet he regularly felt insecure, inadequate, and unfocused. After much trial and error, he eventually discovered what was in front of him (or rather, behind him) all along--his own experience. "My life saved my life," he writes. "My students didn't know there was a man up there escaping a cocoon of Irish history and Catholicism, leaving bits of that cocoon everywhere." At the beginning of his career it had never occurred to him that his own dismal upbringing in the slums of Limerick could be turned into a valuable lesson plan. Indeed, his formal training emphasized the opposite. Principals and department heads lectured him to never share anything personal. He was instructed to arouse fear and awe, to be stern, to be impossible to please--but he couldn't do it. McCourt was too likable, too interested in the students' lives, and too willing to reveal himself for their benefit as well as his own. He was a kindred spirit with more questions than answers: "Look at me: wandering late bloomer, floundering old fart, discovering in my forties what my students knew in their teens." As he did so adroitly in his previous memoirs, Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, McCourt manages to uncover humor in nearly everything. He writes about hilarious misfires, as when he suggested (during his teacher's exam) that the students write a suicide note, as well as unorthodox assignments that turned into epiphanies for both teacher and students. A dazzling writer with a unique and compelling voice, McCourt describes the dignity and difficulties of a largely thankless profession with incisive, self-deprecating wit and uncommon perception. It may have taken him three decades to figure out how to be an effective teacher, but he ultimately saved his most valuable lesson for himself: how to be his own man. --Shawn Carkonen
Product Description
Nearly a decade ago Frank McCourt became an unlikely star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto the literary scene with Angela's Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize -- winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland. Then came 'Tis, his glorious account of his early years in New York.Now, here at last, is McCourt's long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is also an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises he faces in public high schools around New York City. His methods anything but conventional, McCourt creates a lasting impact on his students through imaginative assignments (he instructs one class to write "An Excuse Note from Adam or Eve to God"), singalongs (featuring recipe ingredients as lyrics), and field trips (imagine taking twenty-nine rowdy girls to a movie in Times Square!). McCourt struggles to find his way in the classroom and spends his evenings drinking with writers and dreaming of one day putting his own story to paper. Teacher Man shows McCourt developing his unparalleled ability to tell a great story as, five days a week, five periods per day, he works to gain the attention and respect of unruly, hormonally charged or indifferent adolescents. McCourt's rocky marriage, his failed attempt to get a Ph.D. at Trinity College, Dublin, and his repeated firings due to his propensity to talk back to his superiors ironically lead him to New York's most prestigious school, Stuyvesant High School, where he finally finds a place and a voice. "Doggedness," he says, is "not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights." For McCourt, storytelling itself is the source of salvation, and in Teacher Man the journey to redemption -- and literary fame -- is an exhilarating adventure.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 232 more reviews...
From Limerick to Witty-Lit Stardom November 21, 2008
Well, I finally try something by the celebrated Mr. McCourt, former New York City public high school teacher, now celebrated and successful writer of best sellers like "Angela's Ashes" and this book here. One can see why this was a popular book. McCourt is an engaging raconteur, in the Irish tradition - witty, anecdotal, ironic - and his story is an interesting one. He never takes himself too seriously, altho the anger occasionally pokes thru.
In this book, McCourt tells a the tale of his college years, the time in his twenties he put in working as a longshoreman on the Brooklyn docks, and most importantly, his life as a teacher. There are tales of romance with a young lady who is also the lover of one of his professors. There are stories of his first couple of jobs, early years bouncing around from school to school, just getting by. He seems to have the knack of getting a little too witty with people from time to time. He teaches at a vocational school in Staten Island, and at a community college, but does not get off to a promising start. He touches a bit on marriage and fatherhood, but does not get too far into his relations with his family. Pubs and drinking seem to be a fairly consistent distraction, and one gets the sense that before he began telling his tales to a word processor, he told them in barrooms over pints of Guinness. At one point, he gets accepted to Trinity College in Dublin for a graduate program, but is unable to pull his dissertation on Irish-American literary relations into a managable form. McCourt seems to always be the witty outsider, the smart kid from the rough side of the tracks in Limerick who can't quite find his place in the world. But redemption comes calling in the form of a substitute teaching gig at a top high school, where surprisingly enough, he is asked to stay on and ends up a popular and successful writing teacher.
There are numerous recollections of strange and funny encounters with students. There is the bizarre story of the girl whose sister's husband lost his arms in Korea, and wants sex all the time. There is Kevin, an imaginative (and probably schizophrenic) young man who takes a liking to the author. There is the gang of impossible to control Black girls that he takes to a movie in Times Square. There is the recitation of recipes with musical accompaniment. There are hilarious excuse notes which he saves and then turns into a lesson. And there is some good advice for teachers too.
This was a colorful, anecdotal read, but not lacking in some real substance and insight. Still, I am sure there have been more powerful books written about teaching and life in the schools. This is a likeable one however, and I think therein lies the core of McCourt's success as a writer.
 book purchase November 10, 2008
it was a paperback book in good condition. it was a gift. i'd already read the book. no surprises.
 "Teacher Man" lacks a Moral Compass. October 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was very disappointed while reading, "Teacher Man." I am a speech teacher working in Connecticut and I was hoping that this book would bring me some inspiration. Although Mr. McCourt tells his story in a very honest voice, the undertone is very negative. I kept reading on hoping for a moment of true culmination, when his teaching methods would evolve over time and his classroom would finally give him the respect that he deserves. Instead the story never goes anywhere and we find Mr. McCourt in a desperate struggle searching for self-acceptance from his students. The book made me deeply concerned about the teacher role-models that our children are facing in the school system.
This is a man who feels very vulnerable at the beginning of his teaching career. He even acknowledges to himself after a parent conversation, that deep down inside he feels like a fraud and wonders how on earth he can teach several New York Public School adolescents. These are very challenging classrooms he is teaching, and he is constantly analyzing how he can win over his students and motivate them to learn.
His past in Ireland and past hurts within his own childhood education have carried over into his views on teaching. He was given very strict discipline growing up, but almost to an extreme. "Mea Culpa"- "I am guilty". He is told growing up how he is a sinner, a "bad boy" at different points during his childhood. He decides that he never wants to instill this type of teaching philosophy for his own students and therefore, goes the complete other extreme.
This is the one area that I disagree with Frank McCourt. There needs to be a balance. I felt that there were too many times in which Frank let the classroom take control of things. He has an attitude that "It is us against them." We are in this together and a teacher needs to stick together with his students (almost like a friend). It is us against the higher-ups, the principal, the adminstrators.
While I appreciate how much he wants to help these students and his very creative way of teaching many lesson plans (comparing a pen to the structure of a sentence), at the same time Frank McCourt leaves himself too vulnerable in the classroom. He seems to be afraid to let them know when they have done something wrong- afraid to be honest with them about their behavior. I know that these students are challenging, so he does have to make certain modifications and handle certain situations differently. He fears that he will, "Lose a student" if he comes down too hard on him/her. He wants to keep his students engaged, but unfortunately at any cost.
Along the way, I feel that Mr. McCourt lost sight of certain things.
A teacher needs to make it very clear what his/her role is in the classroom. He can still take his students on that same creative journey that Mr. McCourt does, while maintaining order, instilling discipline (tough love), letting them know when they have done something wrong. Once a person gets to the point where they feel they have to compromise who they are and their ethics to please another person, that is when that person loses respect and loses a part of who he/she is. I really do feel for him with the hardships that he faced in the classroom, but I also feel that he was too busy worrying about what his students thought of him, rather than maintaining a strong moral compass for his students to follow. Maybe I am just too naive to know how truly bad it gets in some of these New York schools, but one thing is for certain- One's moral compass should never be compromised.
Mr. McCourt's teaching style, while different and creative, was sometimes too disorganized and scattered. He often let his students take him off topic from his set lessons. This is fine from time to time (all teachers have to sometimes to take creative detours to get their point across), but there were too many moments when he let his students take advantage of the situation. He needed to be more firm and disciplined with them. His classess were often not planned, unstructured, and disorganized. His students tried to capitalize on this as much as they could in order to get out of work.
Favorite part: The moments in which he made a breakthrough with his students. He felt so elated that he would start singing Irish songs. The "excuse note" idea really did get their attention and had them all writing up a storm, although I do feel he should have used a different creative writing idea to get their attention. Encouraging excuse notes is promoting lying and again compromises ethical teaching. I loved how excited he would get when his students learned something new and when he would share his Irish history with them and take them on that special journey of his past. He did possess a certain Irish charm while story telling that would grab the attention of his students and engage them in classroom conversations about his Irish history.
Least Favorite parts: It made me feel ill reading about his trip to the movies with the 29 female students. That was ridiculous how that was handled. Who was running the show there?- Him or Serena??? It was completely absurd that he wished he was brave enough to defend his students when they were goofing around at the subway. Defend them???? He should have put them in their place and told them that there will be "No Movie" if they can't behave properly. The lines of student and teacher were really blurred there.
A different sort of story from AA and 'Tis, yet equally enjoyable... September 23, 2008
After surviving a miserable childhood in Ireland and making his way to New York City as a young man, Frank McCourt shares anecdotes about his next 30 years -- teaching high school and community college English classes.
McCourt's somewhat unconventional teaching style, he readily admits, didn't reach everyone or even succeed as often as he would have liked. Yet many of his classes, filled with students from poverty-stricken and hopeless homes, found real enthusiasm and understanding through such lessons as writing excuse notes for their own teachers, for setting recipes to music, and setting up impromptu ethnic feasts in the park.
As no section of any person's life can possibly be extricated from all others, readers will find some familiar tidbits first mentioned in AA and 'Tis. This is, in my opinion, just light enough to establish familiarity with previous material; it is certainly not a recycling of the first two books.
As always, McCourt is honest and humorous, giving readers a glimpse into the world that was and is uniquely his.
Come and check out this FANTASTIC EVENT for TEACHER MAN September 12, 2008
Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know there is a GREAT event coming up almost a week away in New York City. The American Place Theatre's Festival: Literature to Life is performing a theatrical adaptation of TEACHER MAN by Frank McCourt on September 21st, 2008. Don't miss out on this wonderful opportunity to see this moving piece of literature come to life. Here's the information and can't wait to see you there!
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