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TIMESTAMPS
The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/all/20060325184524/http://www.whatbooks.com/2005/teacher_man.php
Hardcover Description:
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
Average Customer Rating:
From one teacher to anoither...
I read Angela's Ashes and enjoyed it immensely. I had been a public school teacher during the early stage of my career and thought I would enjoy McCourt's take on the public schools...and I did.
His self-deprecating style works for me and many of the situations he encountered rang very true for me. He portrays the class dynamics very effectively and many of these observations are timeless - teachers experience them every day.
It was a light, engaging and easy read - much less gloomy than Angela's Ashes but you still understand how the boy became the man.
I'm not alone
When I read this book I realized that I am not a freak and am not alone. As a teacher (2nd career) I began to get burned out and disgusted with the educational system. After the newness of teaching wore off I realized its all about the test scores and data. I felt stunted every time I turned around by administration. I felt the same way that Mr. McCourt did. I also was told never share personal info-yet I did and my stories of my adventures and lessons learned in life were a way to become closer to my students and get them interested. My unique approach to teaching didn't always go over well with my administators. So I decided to give up teaching and the stress. After reading this account and realizing that sometimes the teacher does know best I've decided to try it again! Thank you Frank McCourt for a great read and the inspiration to do what I was put on the earth for!
Makes You Think About Homeschooling!
This is a wonderfully written, entertaining and touching tale of Frank McCourt's thirty-some years of teaching in New York City Public schools, prior to the great fame and acclaim he achieved as the author of Angela's Ashes. In it, he reveals the same dry wit and aching, painful honesty that was evident in Angela's AShes -- it contains similar passages that are so real, it's like you were at the scene of the events, and you feel his mortification, his shame and his grief. (I particularly liked it when in the book's first paragraph, he describes himself using the phrase: "What an ass.")
In other words, this is the most honest and real account of teaching that I have ever read -- of the wonderful successes that sometimes occur (occasionally merely due to an impulse that works)and of the failures that can also result. His account of a clearly emotionally disturbed young boy in his classroom who eventually left high school, joined the Army and went to Vietnam where he was MIA is haunting.
I can only assume that he is exaggerating, perhaps out of humility, his incompetence as a teacher. If not, it truly strikes fear in the heart of a parent. His accounts of the days of unplanned lessons, and chaotic classrooms are frightening!
In the best parts of the book, he himself somehow steps back and his students, and their parents, become the main characters in the book -- and you find yourself drawn into the drama of the Irish girl and the Italian boy who become engaged during the senior year only to have it tragically broken off, or of the father who comes to school to beat the son who doesn't behave. However, his voice is a bit inconsistent -- and at times, it's difficult to forget that this is first and foremost 'the story of a now Pulitzer prize winning author who was once a teacher' and somehow that traps the other characters (like the administrators), rendering them lifeless.
However, all in all, this book should be a must-read for anyone considering teaching -- providing a complete antidote to the sticky-sweet prose of some more hopeful, optimistic looks at the teaching profession.
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DVD's
Makes You Think About Homeschooling! 
