Product Description

A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt details his illustrious, amusing, and sometimes rather bumpy long years as an English teacher in the public high schools of New York City! Frank McCourt arrived in New York as a young, impoverished and idealistic Irish boy -- but one who crucially had an American passport, having been born in Brooklyn. He didn't know what he wanted except to stop being hungry and to better himself. On the subway he watched students carrying books. He saw how they read and underlined and wrote things in the margin and he liked the look of this very much. He joined the New York Public Library and every night when he came back from his hotel work he would sit up reading the great novels. Building his confidence and his determination, he talked his way into NYU and gained a literature degree and so began a teaching career that was to last 30 years, working in New York's public high schools. Frank estimates that he probably taught 12,000 children during this time and it is on this relationship between teacher and student that he reflects in 'Teacher Man', the third in his series of memoirs. The New York high school is a restless, noisy and unpredictable place and Frank believes that it was his attempts to control and cajole these thousands of children into learning and achieving something for themselves that turned him into a writer. At least once a day someone would put up their hand and shout 'Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, tell us about Ireland, tell us about how poor you were !' Through sharing his own life with these kids he learnt the power of narrative storytelling, and out of the invaluable experience of holding 12,000 people's attention came 'Angela's Ashes'. Frank McCourt was a legend in such schools as Stuyvesant High School -- long before he became the figure he is now he would receive letters from former students telling him how much his teaching influenced and inspired them -- and now in 'Teacher Man' he shares his reminiscences of those 30 years and reveals how they led to his own success with 'Angela's Ashes' and "Tis'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19958 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-28
• Released on: 2006-09-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
'McCourt has a compulsion to tell us the story of his life, but he does it so well -- modulating beautifully from ventriloquistically exact repro teen-speak to rhapsodic meditations on his midlife crisis -- that one couldn't possibly want him to stop. I wish I could have been in one of his classes.' Sunday Times 'This memoir about teaching is unlike any other I have read: relatively mundane events and incidents shine against that backdrop of that pathetic, abused child.' Francis Gilbert, Sunday Telegraph 'In this third memoir, McCourt recounts his years as a high-school teacher in New York, where he would stop at nothing to reach his surly charges. Nine times out of 10, his approach was successful and it is exhilarating to see these generations of tough-talking teenagers blossom.' Observer 'McCourt's gift for mellifluous storytelling means that his tales of jubilation and disillusionment never disappoint.' Pick of the Week, Daily Telegraph 'McCourt's many fans will of course love this book, but it also should be mandatory reading for every teacher in America. And it wouldn't hurt some politicians to read it, too.' Publishers Weekly 'As good as writing gets about teaching and learning and finding yourself through writing.' USA Today 'Heart-warming.' New York Times 'McCourt has an undeniable gift for turning a phrase.' Boston Globe 'Damn entertaining!McCourt is a master racouteur.' Washington Post

Observer
'...it is exhilarating to see these generations of tough-talking
teenagers blossom.'

Daily Telegraph
'McCourt's gift for mellifluous storytelling means that his tales
of jubilation and disillusionment never disappoint.'

Customer Reviews

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!
I LOVE this book, possibly because as an English teacher myself I can completely relate to it. All teachers who read this will recognise the various stereoptyped 'characters' McCourt talks about in the classroom, as well as his methods of overcoming the most difficult audience in the world; teenagers. The anecdotes and colloquial tone make it easy to follow and fairly quick to read. It is almost like having a conversation with the writer, rather than sitting down and reading a book. I particularly enjoy the way McCourt highlights his own faults and vulnerabilities, openly confessing his mistakes as both a teacher and a human being.

Highly recommended.

not quite a trilogy...
an excellent book, a great insight into the teaching profession, and New York in the time McCourt was working, but if you expect the third part in the angela's ashes and 'tis trilogy, then it isn't quite this, it's less autobiographical, and more a collection of anecdotes and happenings, with some overlap from 'tis.

nevertheless, excellently written, and very warm... definitely worth a read if you loved angela's ashes and 'tis. if you haven't read these, definitely read them first though.

Teacher woman
I'd like to express my opinion on "Teacher man" as a reader of all the previous McCourt's novels and as teacher woman in a vocational/technical high school. Frank Mc Court has given voice to the thousands of undervalued, underpaid teachers all over the world, teachers who struggle to get their students involved in the process of learning, adolescents who carry their problems at school and we have to listen to them, try to help them.... McCourt is superb when he says that after five classes a day, a hundred and more students to care of...you go home but your head is full of the clamour of the classroom. Those who have been teachers can understand the deeper meaning of such words. In the same way correcting students' tests during the weekend ignoring husbands, sons because you have a duty to your students, you have a duty to perform, students want to have back their tests marked within a week. Your head is full of 125 students, girls, boys...you still thinking about the chemistry working in classroom B and not in classroom C although you are the same person, you speak the same language, wear the same clothes. That's what I've liked best in "Teacher man": McCourt is one of us, he's real, he's done his job with passion as it has to be done.As McCourt had no time for reading during his school days I've had to wait for my Christmas holidays to be able to read his book. Frank McCourt is a winner and with his writing he'll inspire thousands of people to better themselves, to find a place in the world because he made it in New York but any other place in the world would be perfect to achieve what we want. Dreams may come true with Frank McCourt.