I'd not read anything by Frank McCourt but did see on the cover of Teacher Man that he was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author for Angela's Ashes (1996).
While still in the used bookstore, I read the Prologue for Teacher Man and was hooked. Turning to the back to see how many pages of text it contains I found that above the last paragraph, someone had penciled in amazing, and under the last sentence in the book was penciled in Great.
I leafed through the book quickly to see if there were any other marks that I could decipher. When I looked more closely, on the top of the introductory page next to the image of him that states America's Teacher of the Year, someone had written in pencil, ES keep reading very thought-provoking.
McCourt writes this memoir a few years before his death and provides us with his interpretation of the ups and downs of his years teaching school.
Like many new to teaching, McCourt starts Part I telling us he is not ready. He shows us his vulnerability by revealing he almost got fired on his first day. He is raw in the way he describes his eleventh graders. I mean, I can close my eyes and think back to my time in high school and I'm certain I heard the same slang.
McCourt does tell readers if his class remembers any word it will most likely be the word gibberish - a word people use to describe what is impossible to understand.
When you get to Part 11, titled, Donkey on a Thistle, McCourt talks about moving on. He reflects on his time teaching high school and he clues readers in on the obvious - one must have their techniques and use their style when teaching.
At this point, he has his Master's degree in English Education and is leaving high school to work at the Community college. Soon after this move, he changed his teaching style for the college students who are mostly 30 and under.
Near the end of the book, McCourt reflects on his years teaching English and creative writing and he talks about challenging students to improve their vocabulary. He does this by having a conversation with students about the way they are discussing that the cafeteria food sucks. He reminds students that, centuries ago Ben Johnson directed our attention to the fact that language reveals the man. And a youth concluded with a quick-witted response.
About the Author
Frank McCourt (1930-2009) was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, grew up in Limerick, Ireland, and returned to America in 1949. For thirty years he taught in New York City high schools. His first book, "Angela's Ashes," won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the L.A. Times Book Award. In 2006, he won the prestigious Ellis Island Family Heritage Award for Exemplary Service in the Field of the Arts and the United Federation of Teachers John Dewey Award for Excellence in Education.