Teacher Man: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
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Book Reviews of Teacher Man: A Memoir
Book Review: And imagine a teacher, a mere teacher, asked for an opinion on education...
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been a teacher almost as long as Frank McCourt was and I loved this book. Thankfully, I've never experienced the frustration he did in the technical schools that dominated his first two decades. For reasons of pure luck I've spent my time in the Stuyvesants of California's suburbs. From my very first year I have worked with students who make my days worthwhile and interesting. And I work with colleagues I trust and who trust me.
On the other side of the continent, Frank McCourt taught high school English for 30 years in New York City. It seems likely to me that he was always a talented teacher, but for most of his career teaching was his private hell filled with idiot administrators, stupider parents and damaged students. In these early technical schools he was bothered and belittled by his betters: "I was uncomfortable with the bureaucrats, the higher-ups, who had escaped classrooms only to turn and bother the occupants of those classrooms, teachers and students. I never wanted to fill out their forms, follow their guidelines, administer their examinations, tolerate their snooping, adjust myself to their programs and courses of study."
But his biggest mistake, I think, was in taking the teacher training seriously. At NYU he was told to present a consistent image of composure and self-confidence. Teach the curriculum, don't let them into your private life, maintain a distant-discipline. Tellingly, all that was said by some of the worst "teachers" imaginable. Why would anyone take them seriously?
From the start, when McCourt got in classroom trouble, he told the stories of his formerly Irish life and the students listened. In the beginning he thinks these stories, and his other classroom solutions, are mistakes. He even confesses to feeling doomed during his NY teacher's exam. (When trapped then he suggests the students write a suicide note.) But he passes and he gets to experience all of those frustrating years in "trade schools." Eventually he ends up at Stuyvesant High with kids who were prepared to learn what he was prepared to teach. At Stuyvesant his "betters" saw themselves as colleagues and knew enough to trust him to stimulate.
In a way, McCourt's story is the opening scene of Brave New World where the embryo Alphas get clean nutrients and embryos at the bottom of the stairs get nutrients laced with alcohol. In a way, it is the story of Jonathan Kozol's firing after his first year in Boston then his awards for doing the same things at a private school the next. In a way, it is the story of the contemporary crisis in American-national education. But what becomes clear is that knowing more about the problem doesn't point to any easy solutions. (Unless we can begin with honest discussions, new parents, new administrators, fresh teachers, and new buildings.)
Of course, all the talk about school rules and school discipline is important. But in the schools I've been a part of, at Stuyvesant, rules and discipline are just there - neither is focused on, at least not focused on seriously. The "high stakes' tests are given, but they are mostly ignored because the students do so well. (And therefore, by definition, they are not "high stakes.") In the marginal schools, at McKee Vocational and Technical in 1958, the rules, the discipline and, now, the "high stakes" tests are ends in themselves; crosses for new crucifixions; reasons to fire Frank McCourt.
Some reviewers have written that it took three decades for McCourt to figure out how to be an effective teacher. They are wrong. It just took him that long to find a school with administrators able to relax and students willing (and able) to learn what he had to teach.
Apropos of nothing in particular here is my favorite part. In the Prologue, soon-to-be-teacher-McCourt fantasizes about what it will be like when he finally makes it in the classroom.
"Principals and other figures of authority passing in the hallways will hear sounds of excitement from your room....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."
Buy the book for yourself and your neighbors and discuss it. And imagine a teacher, a mere teacher, asked for an opinion on education.
Book Review: Excuses, Excuses: An Excerpt from Teacher Man
Summary: 5 Stars
Excuses, Excuses: An Excerpt from Teacher Man
My students forged the notes. I turned them into a lesson plan.
From Reader's Digest, Originally in Teacher Man
I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at Ralph McKee Vocational School in Staten Island, New York, when one of my students, 16-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before:
"Dear Mr. McCort, Mikey's grandmother who is eighty years of age fell down the stairs from too much coffee and I kept Mikey at home to take care of her and his baby sister so I could go to my job at the ferry terminal. Please excuse Mikey and he'll do his best in the future. P.S. His grandmother is ok."
I had seen Mikey writing the note at his desk, using his left hand to disguise his handwriting. I said nothing. Most parental-excuse notes I received back in those days were penned by my students. They'd been forging excuse notes since they learned to write, and if I were to confront each forger I'd be busy 24 hours a day.
I threw Mikey's note into a desk drawer along with dozens of other notes. While my classes took a test, I decided to read all the notes I'd only glanced at before. I made two piles, one for the genuine ones written by mothers, the other for forgeries. The second was the larger pile, with writing that ranged from imaginative to lunatic.
I was having an epiphany.
Isn't it remarkable, I thought, how the students whined and said it was hard putting 200 words together on any subject? But when they forged excuse notes, they were brilliant. The notes I had could be turned into an anthology of Great American Excuses. They were samples of talent never mentioned in song, story or study.
How could I have ignored this treasure trove, these gems of fiction and fantasy? Here was American high school writing at its best--raw, real, urgent, lucid, brief, and lying. I read:
* The stove caught fire and the wallpaper went up and the fire department kept us out of the house all night.
* Arnold was getting off the train and the door closed on his school bag and the train took it away. He yelled to the conductor who said very vulgar things as the train drove away.
* His sister's dog ate his homework and I hope it chokes him.
* We were evicted from our apartment and the mean sheriff said if my son kept yelling for his notebook he'd have us all arrested.
The writers of these notes didn't realize that honest excuse notes were usually dull: "Peter was late because the alarm clock didn't go off."
One day I typed out a dozen excuse notes and distributed them to my senior classes. The students read them silently, intently. "Mr. McCourt, who wrote these?" asked one boy.
"You did," I said. "I omitted names to protect the guilty. They're supposed to be written by parents, but you and I know the real authors. Yes, Mikey?"
"So what are we supposed to do?"
"This is the first class to study the art of the excuse note--the first class, ever, to practice writing them. You're so lucky to have a teacher like me who has taken your best writing and turned it into a subject worthy of study."
Everyone smiled as I went on, "You didn't settle for the old alarm clock story. You used your imaginations. One day you might be writing excuses for your own children when they're late or absent or up to some devilment. So try it now. Imagine you have a 15-year-old who needs an excuse for falling behind in English. Let it rip."
The students produced a rhapsody of excuses, ranging from a 16-wheeler crashing into a house to a severe case of food poisoning blamed on the school cafeteria. They said, "More, more. Can we do more?"
So I said, "I'd like you to write--" And I finished, " `An Excuse Note from Adam to God' or `An Excuse Note from Eve to God.' " Heads went down. Pens raced across paper.
[...]
Book Review: Gives the Lie to the Saying, "Those Who Can't, Teach"
Summary: 5 Stars
TEACHER MAN, Frank McCourt's third and latest memoir of Irish-American immigrant life, is by all accounts a marvelous summary of thirty years in the teaching profession. At the same time, it is so much more. Possessed of what has to be one of the most massive inferiority complexes in the history of memoir writing, McCourt tells the tale of a rebellious, feisty, anti-authoritarian young man in search of himself. That young man struggles through the blue collar world, enters the teaching world almost as a last resort, battles his lack of self-confidence as much as he battles successive school administrators, and ultimately discovers himself in the mirror of his own students.
TEACHER MAN is not just another tale of the "my two years in an inner city school" variety. Mr. McCourt's story ranges far and wide through both his personal and teaching lives, intertwining the two in ways that lend understanding to his development (and, often, failure to develop) in both areas. We follow the author as a dock worker, as a new teacher at a vocational technical high school in Staten Island, as a successful master's student at NYU and a failed doctoral student at Trinity College in Dublin, as a struggling teacher at Fashion Industry and Seward Park high schools in Manhattan, and finally, as a Creative Writing teacher at Stuyvesant High School, arguably the finest public high school in New York. As the years progress, he learns how to "read" and motivate students, respond to troublemakers, and capture their imaginations through non-traditional, frequently offbeat teaching approaches.
Mr. McCourt hardly seems discreet in discussing his life and his classroom antics. He is far from saintly - sometimes loose living, always hard drinking. He describes classroom events for which he is lucky not to have been fired or sued or both, such as pulling a student's legs out from under him and causing him to hit his head as he fell to the floor. Yet for all his human frailties, McCourt ultimately comes across as a caring teacher who learns that his greatest strength is challenging his students to think differently. He compels his students to look inside themselves. He encourages them to pay attention to the details of their lives, learn their grandparents' stories, and see the richness in even the most mundane aspects of their family lives. His students don't just read novels and poems, they sing cookbooks and practice writing excuse notes, first from their parents, then from Adam and Eve to God.
Throughout this charming and eminently readable book, Mr. McCourt maintains a self-deprecating and irreverent style. His approach is at times humorous, sometimes touching, and often inspiring. While he might not always have stuck to the prescribed lesson plans, he understood how to open young minds and get them to question their assumptions. He captures the essence of the teacher/student relationship with perfect pitch.
Ever the iconoclast, McCourt demonstrates through his life's story that, at least for the great teachers, the saying "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach," should be modified to read, "Those who can, teach; those who can't, never experience the joys of those who can." Mr. McCourt proved himself to be a teacher who shaped and changed students, the kind whom students remember their entire lives. He also manages to turn the two words, "I'll try," into an entire chapter, and a profound one at that. He seems to have spent his entire life trying, and succeeding as often as not.
TEACHER MAN is a wonderful and compelling story, a captivating read from cover to cover. It may well be the best "teaching memoir" ever written.
Book Review: The most appropriate word for this book is....Brilliant..
Summary: 5 Stars
If you pay attention to the Irish, you will soon learn that the greatest compliment that can be made is that simple word 'Brilliant'They tend to use it more often than others who speak English, and they use it with great flair.Frank uses it perfectly on page 254.
Before I started to read this book,I was feeling that maybe it was not going to be as good as Angela's Ashes or 'Tis and probably just taking advantage of the unbelievable successes that they were.I was only a few pages into the book and my fears were gone.This book is even better than his others.
As others said, Frank relates his experiences since his first days as a school teacher until his retirement.I'm not sure if he realized it or not,but this is much,much more than that.He really gets into what the whole business of teaching is all about.As you read the book, you can't help thinking about your own experiences as you went through your own school days and even advanced education at college or university.Sure, he writes from a teachers viewpoint, but he clearly understands that the point of all teaching is the student not the teacher and even more so ,not the system.
I always felt that teaching leaned too much on correction and not nearly as much on inspiration.Frank understood this in spades;and for that reason he became a great exception.
Reading the book,brought me back to a discussion I once had with a retired university president.I was saying that in all the teachers I came across in my school days and later in university,I can only think of a couple who ever inspired me.In response he said that if I had encountered a couple,I should consider myself very fortunate,many are not so lucky.It is obvious that Frank was one of those rarities.Generally, teachers dish out the material,ask it to be returned and then correct it and evaluate the student.If you really believe the object of education is to inspire the student,maybe it is the student who should be heard as to whether or not inspiration has been achieved.All arguments against this are really arguments in defense of 'the system'.
It is obvious that Frank believed if he was going to succeed with his students he, more than anything else, had to inspire them.The students saw through this,became inspired,and learned.There is no doubt in my mind that his students would have graded him as the best teacher they ever had.I know I would have loved to have him as my teacher or the teacher of my kids.
I've lived long enough to know that nobody learns unless they are motivated,and conversely anyone who is motivated will learn regardless of the obstacles placed in their way.
This is going to be a book that will be a beacon for teachers and students alike.In my opinion it surpasses his Pulitzer winner because it was really just about him.This book is very different ,it is about him as well,but it is about all of us ;be it teachers or students.
Every student deserves to encounter someone like McCourt,and if they do,they will recognize it,and be affected the rest of their lives.
I predict this book will be a prize winner and a classic on teaching and learning.
Book Review: There are Over 300 Amazon Reviews On This Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
There are over 300 Amazon Reviews about this book! All I can do is echo that this book is "worth your time". It won't change your life and it won't make you rich. And the segments about "how poor we were in Ireland" didn't impress me favorably---everyone knows "the poor people in Ireland used to be poor"---because poor people are/were poor wherever you are/were! (By the way, the people in Ireland are pretty well off these days as I observed a few years ago during my first trip over there.)
AFTERWORD: Mr. "Teacher Man" McCourt is obviously a very decent person. His decency comes through in many ways. For example, he tells how he and some other teachers helped "pass" some of the students on their "Regency Exam" which is the final exam for high school graduation in New York City--on the English Essay part of the test. "Let's see", they are quoted, "This kid shows up in class. Three points for showing up. He made some paragaraphs. Three points for that. His father ran off and left his mother. Three points for father running off. He caused trouble in class this semester only once----three points for causing trouble in class only once....."...etc..etc. Yea, he's a "nice guy".
But.....it sounds to me like he might have been "more productive" and wasted the kids time less. For example, he's quoted as saying to the effect paraphrased, "A certain black male student used 'big words' in his essays. I told him to 'simplify, simplify, simplify' and NOT to use these 'big words'. The kid responded to me (Mr. McCourt) that his other English teacher advised him to LEARN and USE these 'big words'. Mr. McCourt still didn't see anything 'wrong' with his admonition NOT to use 'big words'". What Mr. McCourt did there was to discourage a student from learning VOCABULARY----or "SAT type words". Mr. McCourt, and many other English teachers who would probably give the same advice and admonition are HAMPERING their students from learning "educated English vocabulary". "Educated English Vocabulary" is VERY useful in getting in the 90th per centile and above on the SAT and also VERY useful in understanding well written books such as the Victorian Novels. In addition, knowing more than one way to say something is "good" helps in writing interestingly rather than boringly. Mr. McCourt was "wrong" in this advice and in not having ALL his students learn "educated English"---he was not a "good teacher" in all respects and he wasted the students time in the regard to teaching them a VERY important part of English---"educated vocabulary words." (But, I would have liked to have been in his class when he started to "tell stories" of his life in Ireland---especially if I could just sit there and listen! :o)
Overall, the love of Mr. McCourt for his students comes through the narrative and "stories" of individual students. God bless Mr. McCourt and teachers like him who love their students and who love their fellow man! :o) Email: boland7214@aol.