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Teacher Man | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Scribner
Category: EBooks
List Price: $11.99
Buy New: $9.59
You Save: $2.40 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  232 reviews
Sales Rank: 2860
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 258
Dewey Decimal Number: 371.10092
ASIN: B000FCKI7I
Publication Date: November 8, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Amazon.com
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. "
Download 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 227 more reviews...
 Teacher Man: A Reality Check August 13, 2008
A fellow teacher and friend recommended this book to me; I had never heard of it previously, surprisingly. I knew I would like it just by looking at the cover and first few pages: Frank McCourt's sense of humor and finesse with teaching really shows through with two photographs there especially. He takes the reader easily through the span of his teaching career with a string of hilarious anecdotes and shares invaluable, yet typical, insight along the way. McCourt really refreshed my sense of what teaching was, is , and can be along with putting teaching situations and education in perspective. As a teacher of high school Language Arts, I often wonder whether or not it's me, the kids, or both. Whether he intends to or not, McCourt reassures educators like me that educating youth is an ongoing, if not sometimes stifling, doubting, and frustrating struggle. Kids have always been kids, so to speak, and the best teachers have always been just that too. A true reality check for public school systems in a time of No Child Left Behind. It does a stunning and long-lasting job of reminding us that making kids think is what we yearn for and that, sometimes, we realize that yearning, in spite of ourselves. Thanks Mr. McCourt for revitalizing a part of me that had been a bit bogged down!
 Puzzling July 26, 2008
I am puzzled by this book. The first paragraph stated McCourt's pride over having made something of himself after a terrible childhood. He then proceeds to tell the story of his teaching as part of this. He admits himself that he felt like a fraud much of the time. I can see why! Most of the anecdotes cover stories of his childhood and he admits to not having control over the students. (He seems to waver between intense pride and self loathing.) Although I enjoyed many of his anecdotes(the assignments to write a suicide note, a excuse note to God from Eve, and reading recipes to music), I spent a lot of time wondering how he could have been a wonderful teacher and had kids flocking to the classroom. I must assume that there is something key to McCourt's charming classroom manner that he left out.
 Terribly boring and repetitive July 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased this book with the hopes of having something fun and enjoyable to read, but ended up struggling to finish it. I have never read Angela's Ashes or 'Tis, but at this point I don't think I want to!
The book started off with McCourt being a teacher trying to find his way in the teaching world and trying to figure out what works with the students, but then it seemed to stay there. Throughout the entire book it seemed that he was more worried about the students liking him than actually teaching them anything. And even after 30 years of teaching apparently he still has no idea what he's doing and still just wants his students to like him.
As I haven't read his other books I didn't mind the flashbacks to his childhood in Ireland, although he seems to repeat the same types of situations over and over. But his stories about his students and their parents were even more repetitive. At one point I thought i'd put my bookmark on the wrong page because I was sure i'd read a certain part already, but, no, he was just telling a "different" story that was exactly like the others.
As this book is only 257 pages long I expected to finish it in a day or two but it took me almost a week because I just didn't WANT to read it. Maybe if i was a teacher i'd find it more amusing, but I say don't waste your money buying this!
 Life and Teaching Are Not Easy July 1, 2008
I was very surprized about this book. Frank McCourt was not the jovial , funny loving man I thought he would be. In this memoir, Mc Court writes briefly about his college education, his early years teaching at vocational high schools, and finally with pride some interesting lessons he taught at Stuyvesant High School.McCourt writes honestly about the difficulty of teaching . There is some humor in his story ( McCourt developed his students' writing skills by having them practice writing excuse notes). McCourt also had some sexual affaires before and during his unhappy marriage.
I liked this book. It was honest.I came away from the book thinking that we shouldn't give up on ourselves. No matter how old we are we can still make a differnce. Frank McCourt was 66 years old when he wrote his first book.
Climbing the ladder of success, trailing a lifetime's baggage June 26, 2008
An admitted late bloomer, Frank McCourt more than makes up for his tardiness with "Teacher Man," the third installment (after "Angela's Ashes" and "'Tis") of his life story. In the years between his miserable childhood in Ireland and his late-in-life success as a writer, McCourt spent thirty years teaching in New York City's high schools and community colleges. "Teacher Man" shows McCourt as he begins to make it in America, moving from the docks by dint of a teaching certificate and even higher degrees. Meanwhile, he struggles with the insecurities and esteem problems that stem from his Irish Catholic upbringing. Ironically, his genius and self-doubt combine to make him (at least in his own telling) a fairly successful teacher who can connect with kids that his more experienced colleagues cannot.
McCourt incisively recalls and communicates the motivations and methods of the major players. There are the other teachers, full of loathing for their students and ever-ambitious for a chance to get into administration. There are the no-nothing teacher college professors, whose lack of first-hand knowledge condemns their lessons to irrelevance. There are the kids, ever on the lookout for an angle to distract teachers from their lesson plans. There is McCourt himself, telling his life stories, first as a way to keep the kids quiet, then as he grows in confidence, as a way to reach them and even teach them. McCourt's honesty is refreshing and often painful. His painful and loutish groping toward relationships with women only lightly veils the most intimate of details. The "Frank McCourt" character he creates here is bumbling, prickly (sometimes to the point of violence), always vulnerable but ultimately true to himself.
McCourt's style, a kind of rolling narrative, dips into the past as often as it pushes the narrative forward. Some may see him tapping his previous works overmuch. But it is a perfect parallel to the way of memory of one as sensitive as McCourt -- ever circling back to touchstones in memory to make sense of the present.
"Teacher Man" is entertaining, illuminating and hard to put down. For an extra bonus, listen to the audio book voiced by author.
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