Teacher Man: A Memoir by Frank McCourt
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.99 You Save: $23.01 (88%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Teacher Man: A Memoir
Book Review: SHOW AND TELL
Summary: 5 Stars
Frank Mc Court has written an engaging, humorous, relevant look inside the world of teaching. The book is not only for teachers and parents, although they would probably appreciate it the most. I am neither, yet I thoroughly enjoyed the author's passage through life. Find what you love and do it- he suggests. Now that is a universal theme anyone can relate to. Not easy to do, but well worth the journey.
One of Mr. McCourt's students suggested he write a book-. He responded- I'll try.
He did. "Teacher Man" kept me interested in its engrossing action and rich imagery from start to finish. Whether showing us Ireland, New York, bars, parks, classrooms challenging young minds to wake-up, think , analyze for themselves,-- failed relationships, failed marriage, self-doubt, --Mr Mc Ccourt tells it honestly. Maybe that's why this book is so refreshingly good!
Highly recommended reading for anyone who enjoys excellent writing.
By the way, Teachers of New York just gave their prestigious "2006 Teacher of the Year Award " to Frank Mc Court. Well deserved!
Book Review: Teacher Man, Honest Man
Summary: 5 Stars
Frank McCourt is one of America's greatest writers, and his books are nearly impossible to put down. That's quite a statement to make about a book about a teaching career, which might sound like a snoozer if ever there was one. Those of us who read Angela's Ashes are not surprised that he grew up to be haunted by self-doubt, self-defeating, prone to drinking too much, awkward with ladies, in a failed marriage, etc. Those of us who had miserable childhoods, too, but eventually turned out OK, are also not surprised that he managed to have a productive life anyway, even if he undervalued it at times. There is a lot in this book we can relate to, and that is because he is more honest about himself than most of us would ever have the courage to be in public. Those of us who have been teachers appreciate his honesty about how hard it is and admire how he overcame the war of wills to learn to dance with his classes, once he found an environment where he could thrive and be creative. This book shows how much life happens in a classroom and how one decent, imperfect, and brilliant teacher nurtured that life and gave it voice.Book Review: Not a Teaching Manual
Summary: 5 Stars
For those who have criticized this book, because it doesn't deal with teaching, I suggest they read one of Marva Collin's books. This book is first and foremost about FEAR. He says the "Little Slum Boy is always waiting for the ax to fall." He feels the FEAR and he does it anyway!! He says teaching was by doggedness and how I wish I'd had that in my life so I'd have become a doctor. For all those who never felt like they deserved being what they longed to be, this book shows how one man did it. He never tries to be great, because he is just too busy trying to manage each day. The poor students in the schools of New York can't see the value in education that he can see, but he tries to teach them anyway. He is chosen "Teacher of the Year" at the top high school in New York, so I'm sure the students there learned from him, otherwise he wouldn't have lasted in "a high school where I could have never gotten in as a student" for 18 years. For the critics who are upset that he talks about his sex life, I suppose that is the shock that a Teacher would lhave one! I just found him to be very human.Book Review: The Great Liberating Teacher
Summary: 5 Stars
Out of the book's admirably ironic mix of reminiscences of his Irish past, his personal life (with a disastrous therapy) and his teaching job (beginning with `clarity first' grammar and later creative writing), one can learn two extremely important lessons from Frank McCourt.
In the first place, everybody has a right to think for himself.
Nearly all his students had an inferiority complex (`I'm nobody, professor. Nobody.') Nobody had ever told them they had a right to an opinion. Whatever ideas they had about the world they lived in came from the media.
Frank McCourt's message was: `from fear to freedom'.
Secondly, `find what you love and do it.'
Frank McCourt's positive view on teaching with its potential `therapeutic catharsis' for his students notwithstanding all their gender, racial, generation and culture differences made him in fact a `Great Liberating Teacher'.
This book is a gem, a must read for all those working in the education sector and for all those who want to try to make a better world to live in.
Book Review: A view from the other side of the teacher's desk
Summary: 5 Stars
All of us have had experiences with teachers and school - yet few know what it is like to stand in front of a class of America's youth and DO the thing. Frank McCourt humorously and honestly tells it like it is.
In his typical self-depreciating manner, he retells of thirty years in the teaching profession and his attempts at engaging students, making lessons relevant, questioning, probing, prodding, beging and pleading for kids to learn and to love learning.
His experiences range from teaching the poor, working class and immigrant kids, to the children of the affluent at one of New York's most prestigeous high schools. The irony is, kids are kids. And good teaching is good teaching: let the students explore, let them work things out; encourage them, listen.
As a teacher, I see pieces of myself in many of his stories. I also see my kids in most of his tales. It is heart-warming, frustrating and moving - like teaching itself. Highly recommended.