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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.
If I knew anything about Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis I'd be able to trace all my troubles to my miserable childhood in Ireland. That miserable childhood deprived me of self-esteem, triggered spasms of self pity, paralyzed my emotions, made me cranky, envious and disrespectful of authority, retarded my development, crippled my doings with the opposite sex, kept me from rising in the world and made me unfit, almost, for human society. How I became a teacher at all and remained one is a miracle and I have to give myself full marks for surviving all those years in the classrooms of New York. There should be a medal for people who survive miserable childhoods and become teachers, and I should be first in line for the medal and whatever bars might be appended for ensuing miseries.
I could lay blame. The miserable childhood doesn't simply happen. It is brought about. There are dark forces. If I am to lay blame it is in a spirit of forgiveness. Therefore, I forgive the following: Pope Pius XII; the English in general and King George VI in particular; Cardinal MacRory, who ruled Ireland when I was a child; the bishop of Limerick, who seemed to think everything was sinful; Eamonn De Valera, former prime minister (Taoiseach) and president of Ireland. Mr. De Valera was a half-Spanish Gaelic fanatic (Spanish onion in an Irish stew) who directed teachers all over Ireland to beat the native tongue into us and natural curiosity out of us. He caused us hours of misery. He was aloof and indifferent to the black and blue welts raised by schoolmaster sticks on various parts of our young bodies. I forgive, also, the priest who drove me from the confessional when I admitted to sins of self-abuse and self-pollution and penny thieveries from my mother's purse. He said I did not show a proper spirit of repentance, especially in the matter of the flesh. And even though he had hit that nail right on the head, his refusal to grant me absolution put my soul in such peril that if I had been flattened by a truck outside the church he would have been responsible for my eternal damnation. I forgive various bullying schoolmasters for pulling me out of my seat by the sideburns, for walloping me regularly with stick, strap and cane when I stumbled over answers in the catechism or when in my head I couldn't divide 937 by 739. I was told by my parents and other adults it was all for my own good. I forgive them for those whopping hypocrisies and wonder where they are at this moment. Heaven? Hell? Purgatory (if it still exists)?
I can even forgive myself, though when I look back at various stages of my life, I groan. What an ass. What timidities. What stupidities. What indecisions and flounderings.
But then I take another look. I had spent childhood and adolescence examining my conscience and finding myself in a perpetual state of sin. That was the training, the brainwashing, the conditioning and it discouraged smugness, especially among the sinning class.
Now I think it time to give myself credit for at least one virtue: doggedness. Not as glamorous as ambition or talent or intellect or charm, but still the one thing that got me through the days and nights.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said that in American lives there are no second acts. He simply did not live long enough. In my case he was wrong.
When I taught in New York City high schools for thirty years no one but my students paid me a scrap of attention. In the world outside the school I was invisible. Then I wrote a book about my childhood and became mick of the moment. I hoped the book would explain family history to McCourt children and grandchildren. I hoped it might sell a few hundred copies and I might be invited to have discussions with book clubs. Instead it jumped onto the best-seller list and was translated into thirty languages and I was dazzled. The book was my second act.
In the world of books I am a late bloomer, a johnny-come-lately, new kid on the block. My first book, Angela's Ashes, was published in 1996 when I was sixty-six, the second, 'Tis, in 1999 when I was sixty-nine. At that age it's a wonder I was able to lift the pen at all. New friends of mine (recently acquired because of my ascension to the best-seller lists) had published books in their twenties. Striplings.
So, what took you so long?
I was teaching, that's what took me so long. Not in college or university, where you have all the time in the world for writing and other diversions, but in four different New York City public high schools. (I have read novels about the lives of university professors where they seemed to be so busy with adultery and academic in-fighting you wonder where they found time to squeeze in a little teaching.) When you teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you're not inclined to go home to clear your head and fashion deathless prose. After a day of five classes your head is filled with the clamor of the classroom.
I never expected Angela's Ashes to attract any attention, but when it hit the best-seller lists I became a media darling. I had my picture taken hundreds of times. I was a geriatric novelty with an Irish accent. I was interviewed for dozens of publications. I met governors, mayors, actors. I met the first President Bush and his son the governor of Texas. I met President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton. I met Gregory Peck. I met the Pope and kissed his ring. Sarah, Duchess of York, interviewed me. She said I was her first Pulitzer Prize winner. I said she was my first duchess. She said, Ooh, and asked the cameraman, Did you get that? Did you get that? I was nominated for a Grammy for the spoken word and nearly met Elton John. People looked at me in a different way. They said, Oh, you wrote that book, This way, please, Mr. McCourt, or Is there anything you'd like, anything? A woman in a coffee shop squinted and said, I seen you on TV. You must be important. Who are you? Could I have your autograph? I was listened to. I was asked for my opinion on Ireland, conjunctivitis, drinking, teeth, education, religion, adolescent angst, William Butler Yeats, literature in general. What books are you reading this summer? What books have you read this year? Catholicism, writing, hunger. I spoke to gatherings of dentists, lawyers, ophthalmologists and, of course, teachers. I traveled the world being Irish, being a teacher, an authority on misery of all kinds, a beacon of hope to senior citizens everywhere who always wanted to tell their stories.
They made a movie of Angela's Ashes. No matter what you write in America there is always talk of The Movie. You could write the Manhattan telephone directory, and they'd say, So, when is the movie?
If I hadn't written Angela's Ashes I would have died begging, Just one more year, God, just one more year because this book is the one thing I want to do in my life, what's left of it. I never dreamed it would be a best-seller. I hoped it would sit on booksellers' shelves while I lurked in the bookshop and watched beautiful women turn pages and shed the occasional tear. They'd buy the book, of course, take it home, loll on divans and read my story while sipping herbal tea or a fine sherry. They'd order copies for all their friends.
In 'Tis I wrote about my life in America and how I became a teacher. After it was published I had the nagging feeling I'd given teaching short shrift. In America, doctors, lawyers, generals, actors, television people and politicians are admired and rewarded. Not teachers. Teaching is the downstairs maid of professions. Teachers are told to use the service door or go around the back. They are congratulated on having ATTO (All That Time Off). They are spoken of patronizingly and patted, retroactively, on their silvery locks. Oh, yes, I had an English teacher, Miss Smith, who really inspired me. I'll never forget dear old Miss Smith. She used to say that if she reached one child in her forty years of teaching it would make it all worthwhile. She'd die happy. The inspiring English teacher then fades into gray shadows to eke out her days on a penny-pinching pension, dreaming of the one child she might have reached. Dream on, teacher. You will not be celebrated.
You think you'll walk into the classroom, stand a moment, wait for silence, watch while they open notebooks and click pens, tell them your name, write it on the board, proceed to teach.
On your desk you have the English course of study provided by the school. You'll teach spelling, vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, composition, literature.
You can't wait to get to the literature. You'll have lively discussions about poems, plays, essays, novels, short stories. The hands of one hundred and seventy students will quiver in the air and they'll call out, Mr. McCourt, me, me, I wanna say something.
You hope they'll want to say something. You don't want them to sit gawking while you struggle to keep a lesson alive.
You'll feast on the bodies of English and American literature. What a time you'll have with Carlyle and Arnold, Emerson and Thoreau. You can't wait to get to Shelley, Keats and Byron and good old Walt Whitman. Your classes will love all that romanticism and rebellion, all that defiance. You'll love it yourself, because, deep down and in your dreams, you're a wild romantic. You see yourself on the barricades.
Principals and other figures of authority passing in the hallways will hear sounds of excitement from your room. They'll peer through the door window in wonder at all the raised hands, the eagerness and excitement on the faces of these boys and girls, these plumbers, electricians, beauticians, carpenters, mechanics, typists, machinists.
You'll be nominated for awards: Teacher of the Year, Teacher of the Century. You'll be invited to Washington. Eisenhower will shake your hand. Newspapers will ask you, a mere teacher, for your opinion on education. This will be big news: A teacher asked for his opinion on education. Wow. You'll be on television.
Television.
Imagine: A teacher on television.
They'll fly you to Hollywood, where you'll star in movies about your own life. Humble beginnings, miserable childhood, problems with the church (which you bravely defied), images of you solitary in a corner, reading by candlelight: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens. You there in the corner blinking with your poor diseased eyes, bravely reading till your mother pulls the candle away from you, tells you if you don't stop the two eyes will fall out of your head entirely. You plead for the candle back, you have only a hundred pages left in Dombey and Son, and she says, No, I don't want to be leading you around Limerick with people asking how you went blind when a year ago you were kicking a ball with the best of them.
You say yes to your mother because you know the song:
A mother's love is a blessingNo matter where you go
Keep her while you have her
You'll miss her when she's gone.
Besides, you could never talk back to a movie mother played by one of those old Irish actresses, Sarah Allgood or Una O'Connor, with their sharp tongues and their suffering faces. Your own mother had a powerful hurt look, too, but there's nothing like seeing it on the big screen in black and white or living color.
Your father could be played by Clark Gable except that a) he might not be able to handle your father's North of Ireland accent and b) it would be a terrible comedown from Gone With the Wind, which, you remember, was banned in Ireland because, it is said, Rhett Butler carried his own wife, Scarlett, up the stairs and into bed, which upset the film censors in Dublin and caused them to ban the film entirely. No, you'd need someone else as your father because the Irish censors would be watching closely and you'd be badly disappointed if the people in Limerick, your city, and the rest of Ireland were denied the opportunity of seeing the story of your miserable childhood and subsequent triumph as teacher and movie star.
But that would not be the end of the story. The real story would be how you eventually resisted the siren call of Hollywood, how after nights of being dined, wined, feted and lured to the beds of female stars, established and aspiring, you discovered the hollowness of their lives, how they poured out their hearts to you on various satin pillows, how you listened, with twinges of guilt, while they expressed their admiration for you, that you, because of your devotion to your students, had become an idol and an icon in Hollywood, how they, the ravishing female stars, established and aspiring, regretted how they had gone astray, embracing the emptiness of their Hollywood lives when, if they gave it all up, they could rejoice daily in the integrity of teaching the future craftsmen, tradesmen and clerk-typists of America. How it must feel, they would say, to wake up in the morning, to leap gladly from the bed, knowing that before you stretched a day in which you'd do God's work with the youth of America, content with your meager remuneration, your real reward the glow of gratitude in the eager eyes of your students as they bear gifts from their grateful and admiring parents: cookies, bread, homemade pasta and the occasional bottle of wine from the backyard vines of Italian families, the mothers and fathers of your one hundred and seventy students at McKee Vocational and Technical High School, Borough of Staten Island, in the City of New York.
Copyright © 2005 by Green Peril Corp.
Anonymous
Posted July 4, 2008
It had been awhile since I had read Frank McCourt. I had read the rivoting accounts known as Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, and my son purchased this book for me on the chance I would be interested in a 3rd installment. Teacher Man has brought me back to the reason I love reading: Frank McCourt's ability to create a moving account of experience with humor and honesty. While I read, he is a friend telling a story, teaching a lesson, and sharing pain. Thank you, Mr. McCourt, for another glimpse into your brilliance in simplicity.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 12, 2007
Frank McCourt's poignant account on his experiences as a teacher is sure to open the eyes of those living in mere oblivion or outright ignorance those who think teaching is 'easy' and 'so what if teachers are underpaid, they get all those days off'. He falls nothing short of genius and his words are undoubtedly captivating. This book is surely one of the year's best, and it's truth --that teachers are society's unsung heroes-- promises to reach even the most stoic of people.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 6, 2007
This man is a true survivor. I feel like I know him, since he continues to expose his vulerabilies to us in his writings. In his books, I followed him from his birth in America, through his very rough childhood and adolescence in Ireland, then back to America. I love the way he shares with us his insecurities and takes very little credit for his successes. In Teacher Man,it seemed as though his life as a teacher was one big experiment that seemed to work for him and most of his students. I always thought that teachers had all the answers. What folly! I am a nurse and I certainly don't have all the answers either.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 24, 2006
Teacher Man is an inspiring novel about a man pursuing his dream of becoming an English teacher. Beginning his first year teaching he slowly figures out universal secrets of becoming the ultimate teacher. He almost gets fired during his first few days Frank McCourt overcomes these difficult times and continues with his teaching. After switching to numerous schools Frank found the school which suited him best. Between the different cultures of students he had varieties of difficult situations, for them to overcome their problems along with Frank. Because of the different cultures he had to face, Frank was able to overcome his fears and stand with confidence in front of the classroom. Gaining control of the classroom was one of the biggest accomplishments Frank overcame. A major theme of the novel is to be yourself. This is important because showing people who you actually are shows them you are not afraid therefore are confident they will be able to uphold a relationship. He displays this by first going into a new classroom timid, but then after a while he feels he has the freedom to show the class he is open to new and exciting ideas. Once he had started to loosen up he rambled on about things that are not relevant to English. This book is highly recommended because it shows everyone to learn to be happy with themselves and not change for anyone. Another recommended book would be 'Tiss and Angela¿s Ashes which are novels Frank McCourt has also written. The overall rating is completely outstanding.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 30, 2005
Frank McCourt is without a doubt one of the most skilled and entertaining writers I have ever encountered in my many years of reading for pleasure.His intelligence, wit, sparing prose, (no excess verbiage), e.g.'At thirty I married Alberta Small....' That's all we hear about Alberta until occasional mentions creep out during the rest of the book to help the reader get to know Alberta. Another example is 'My Papa's Waltz' by T.Roethke,a poem used in one of his lessons. It is such a moving poem in so few words. McCourt's kindness and sensitivity towards his students, together with his unique teaching style,makes me wish all teachers were as talented. Learning would be enjoyable for every student.I am glad I read Angela's Ashes first. It gave me an understanding of how Frank McCourt evolved. Apart from his teaching career, his personal life is facinating-that old Irish guilt thing rears its ugly head and makes for many funny stories.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 17, 2005
This memoir cannot possible receive less tham 5 stars. Whether you are familiar with McCourt's background or are a first time reader, this books grabs you and it's hard not to race to get to the end. Then when the end comes, disappointment sets in, for you realize you have devoured it too soon. The fact that McCourt chooses to view his life with humor rather than drama is a treat for us all...all of us who 'get it'.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted November 21, 2005
Although this book is being hailed as the end of Mr. McCourt's trilogy, I think that is really not the case. Each book stands on its own. You don't have to read the first two to enjoy this third. I have read all three and enjoyed each one. This book gives those of us who aspire to be become writers, hope in our future if we just follow McCourt's advice. He makes it sound easy, but of course, it isn't. I predict that Frank McCourt will go on to win prizes for writing this book as he did with the other two.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 26, 2012
The memoir "Teacher Man" by Frank McCourt is one of the best books I have read in a while and really made me not want to put it down. The book is a re-calling of his teaching days in NYC and his personal life as well as his triumphs and down-falls. There is a mix of humor, honesty, courage, grit, and sarcasm which makes this book delightful to the reader. He also uses a very unconventional teaching style in which he teaches his students in the ways that they know best. For example, he had his students write an excuse note for Adam and Eve to give to God. The witty and honest tone of the book was one of my big likes about this story and also seeing how the inner-city schools are a lot different than my own, and I could relate to that and think about what it would have been like as a student or as a teacher. The one confusing part of the book was how McCourt very seldomly used quotations, which sometimes made it hard to follow who was talking, or if in-fact, someone was talking in the first place. If you are a student, or especcially a teacher, I strongly reccomend this book for you. Even if you are none of the above, I think you will definitely get something out of this book. McCourt's best-seller is "Angela's Ashes" so if you are unfimilliar with Frank McCout, this might be a good starting place. I give this book 4 stars.
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Posted January 3, 2012
In my opinion, his best work.
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Posted May 5, 2010
If you're a teacher, McCourt's book will make you nod and smile. You'll recognize some of the same classroom scenes today.
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Posted December 19, 2009
This was too much of the same thing and I could not read it, took it down to our community library. I read the first two books he wrote and they were wonderful.
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 5, 2009
Teacher Man is a great disappointment. In my opinion, McCourt peaked at Angela's Ashes- a book I loved. All the sympathy that he was able to garner from me in Angela is gone. Teacher Man is about a teacher that whines about teaching, kids, the public school system, marriage- you name it. You don't cheer for him like you do in Angela. Again, wish he stopped at Angela.
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Posted October 10, 2009
Teacher Man is Frank McCourt's compelling memoir of his days as a NY city school teacher. Unadorned with high prose, unfettered by lofty ideals, McCort drags the reader along on his bumpy professional and personal journey. It's real, it's exciting, and it's the best argument for raising teacher salaries I've ever seen.
I highly recommend the unabridged audio version, read by the author. It's hard to beat the combination of McCourt's lean writing an is serious Irish brogue.
I found this to be an excellent teaching tool for myself and for presentation to my students. Frank McCourt was a good teacher, but he also had to learn about being a teacher. Good reading, and I was inspired to read his other books, as well.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I had somehow overlooked this book in the years since it was published. McCourt's obituary in the Times mentioned it so I ordered it and his other two books, just to update my library.
Teacher Man is fascinating. A study of a man driven to teach who uses his life experience to entertain and cajole students to learn, listen and ultimately to write. The book held my interest and I found myself laughing out loud at some of the antics McCourt pulled in his classroom. And sympathizing with him when there was a bad day or a failure to reach a promising student. Like his first two books, Teacher Man is driven by McCourt's singular voice and wit. I'll admit he charmed me even through a few rough spots in the narrative. A book well worth the price and the time.
IGY7
Posted June 11, 2009
I think that this book was very good. The dialogue to me is very interesting, I think how he did it was very effective. Frank does not use quotation marks throughout the entire book. This forces the reader to be engaged in the book or else they would get lost. Once you start to read the book you'll understand who is talking. Also it provides for the book to be read more smoothly and fluent.
Without giving too much away from his book, the plot structure was very easy to follow. He jumps through different times in the book. He goes from his childhood to the classroom and his personal life. He goes through all aspects of his life, not necessarily in numerical order. How he writes the plot is telling many different anecdotes jumping from past to present. It makes you feel he is sitting down with you telling his life story in person.
His reflections in the story were griping. I enjoyed the fact that he stayed honest in his writing. Since it is a memoir he told it from his prospective. Like anybody, he does not remember everything word for word exactly how it happens. He stays honest in his writing and tells the reader that he is not exactly sure about all the details. As a reader you feel more comfortable reading his version of the story and it makes the narrative more believable.
Anonymous
Posted October 23, 2008
This is what shaped him. Teaching is what molded him into Frank McCourt. As McCourt had been a teacher for some thirty odd years, he reflects on how his experiences in the public High Schools of New York, to his final destination of the prestigious Stuyvesant High School shape him as not only a teacher, but also into the writer he becomes. McCourt in the very beginning simply states, ¿My life saved my life¿ (20). And his life is the story that he tells.
A great teacher is a great storyteller, and McCourt is exactly this. The kids at McKee Vocational and Technical High School, his first teaching job constantly implore McCourt to tell the story of his life (although it is mostly to waste time). But, McCourt responds anyway, ¿Instead of teaching, I told stories¿ (19). In parallel, as McCourt talks about his childhood in Ireland, NYU, and working on the Brooklyn fish docks to his students, he simultaneously shows the story of his teaching career and students. His stories became his life ¿ his life saved his life.
McCourt is very hesitant at first to try writing. McCourt as a teacher is McCourt as a writer. He is a pushover, hardly taking risks. ¿I envied him [Edward Dahlberg] for living the life of a writer, a dream I was then timid to chance. I admired him or anyone who went his own way and stuck to his guns¿ (106). It is only in relating to his students, who are mostly of immigrant families like him, and hearing their stories that McCourt realizes he can ¿drop the teacher mask¿ (130), thereby dropping his mask as a writer, and do what he envies Dahlberg so much for doing; being a writer.
A great storyteller is not just a teacher, but also an enchanter. In Teacher Man, McCourt is the enchanter. He says that ¿Dreaming, wishing, planning: it¿s all writing, but the difference between you and the man on the street is that you are looking at it, friends, getting it set in your head, realizing the significance of the insignificance, getting it on paper¿ You are your material¿ (246). He sees the significance in his ¿insignificant¿ life story because his students almost forced him to reflect upon it with their not ¿ so ¿ sly tactics to try and get out of learning English. And because of teaching, Frank McCourt showed himself that the teacher man with the mask is not always the teacher. Sometimes, without knowing it, those who you are teaching, are the ones that end up, teaching you.
Anonymous
Posted October 22, 2007
Teacher Man is a great novel about a man named Frank McCourt, who is born in Ireland and moves to America to become an English teacher. In New York he taught at many schools were he faced problems with many staff members and parents until he found the right high school for him. In the Beginning of the book, it is hard for Frank but towards the middle and end of the book he is an incredible teacher and really values his career. A major message or theme in this book is to not give up. When Frank first became a teacher a thought about quitting because it was very difficult for him but he never gave up. I didn¿t like this book because it seemed like in most parts, the story went on and on. Frank also goes into more detail then what is necessary. I think someone should read this book because it shows how Frank Mc Court¿s love for being a teacher has impacted and recreated some many of his students lives. Other recommended books: -all his work
0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted October 8, 2007
Teacher Man is about a man that moves to America to be a teacher from Ireland. He discovers that it is totally different. When he starts out in the beginning it is pretty hard for him to adjust. Towards the middle and end of the book he becomes this great teacher that everyone loves. In this novel it talks about all of his experiences and obstacles that he goes through and overcomes. I feel like when reading this book it is one inspiring but at the same time it drags on about the same thing. This novel is in such great detail that you feel like you know him on a different level then just an author. In a way it would put a thought in my head if I do really want to be a teacher. This novel is an ok book to read. I think that if he did not drag on and on about the same thing it could be better. It does put you in his shoes and what it was like for him to come into such a different teaching environment and what it feels like to be the teacher that he is. If you like novels that go into great detail then I would recommend this novel to you but I would not if you are not good with reading when it drags on and on.
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Posted October 23, 2006
Teacher Man is a great novel about a young man named Frank who comes to America from Ireland, and becomes a teacher. Frank taught at many different schools in New York. He faced many difficulties while he is teaching, including problems with staff members and parents. He also had to deal with the different classes of people and the different groups in New York. Frank starts off having a hard time teaching, but towards the middle of the book, he turns to be an awesome teacher. When Frank is first teaching he has a hard time letting the students know who is boss, and they take advantage of him. Frank soon learns that he can make class fun and still have the students learn. Frank learns how to improve his teaching skills and turns out to be an amazing teacher. He shares with his students a lot about his past in Ireland, and they are interested. The major theme or message in this book is to learn to be you. A couple of students in the book have difficulties with who they are and Frank does to. You learn that you just have to be yourself and things will work out in the end. Another theme in the book would be not to give up. Frank questioned teaching and thought about quitting, but he never gave up and now look at where he is! I really liked this book because it showed how unique Frank was in his teaching. He taught a couple of lessons that no one thought would apply to anything, yet in the end the students loved the lesson and learned many new things. It also gives you a good perspective on the teaching career. I did not like how Frank kept jumping back into his past. The novel was difficult to follow at times, but other than that it was a great book. I think that if you want to be a teacher or if you want to learn more about the teaching career, then you should read this book. Other recommended works would be `Tis and Angela¿s Ashes.
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Overview
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 ...