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Title details for Teacher Man by Frank McCourt - Available

Teacher Man

by Frank McCourt
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
A third memoir from the author of the huge international bestsellers Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. In Teacher Man, Frank McCourt reads his own account of 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 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 will share his reminiscences of those 30 years as well as revealing how they led to his own success with Angela's Ashes and 'Tis.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 4, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780007536467
      • File size: 155924 KB
      • Duration: 05:24:50

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 920
    • Text Difficulty: 4-5

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 12, 2005
      This final memoir in the trilogy that started with Angela's Ashes
      and continued in 'Tis
      focuses almost exclusively on McCourt's 30-year teaching career in New York City's public high schools, which began at McKee Vocational and Technical in 1958. His first day in class, a fight broke out and a sandwich was hurled in anger. McCourt immediately picked it up and ate it. On the second day of class, McCourt's retort about the Irish and their sheep brought the wrath of the principal down on him. All McCourt wanted to do was teach, which wasn't easy in the jumbled bureaucracy of the New York City school system. Pretty soon he realized the system wasn't run by teachers but by sterile functionaries. "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." As McCourt matured in his job, he found ingenious ways to motivate the kids: have them write "excuse notes" from Adam and Eve to God; use parts of a pen to define parts of a sentence; use cookbook recipes to get the students to think creatively. A particularly warming and enlightening lesson concerns a class of black girls at Seward Park High School who felt slighted when they were not invited to see a performance of Hamlet
      , and how they taught McCourt never to have diminished expectations about any of his students. McCourt throws down the gauntlet on education, asserting that teaching is more than achieving high test scores. It's about educating, about forming intellects, about getting people to think. 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.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Frank McCourt specializes in writing about survival of childhood, of emigration, and now in his new memoir, of New York City's public schools. After hearing of his adventures teaching the future plumbers and beauticians of America-he kept a lid on utter chaos by telling stories from his own life--the listener will be as glad as the author was when he finally arrives at the prestigious Stuyvesant High, where he uses recipes to teach creative writing. The author's voice is characterized by his bemused brogue, but flashes of anger also abound, the vestiges of a deprived childhood. His impersonations of his students' constant interruptions are filled with affection and respect. McCourt's storytelling is, once again, mesmerizing. And if you're a teacher, so much the better. E.K.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
    • AudioFile Magazine
      Teaching high school is surely one of the most difficult professions. To hear Frank McCourt tell it--the challenges are devilishly amplified while our admiration for his candor and creativity is certain. McCourt recounts his experiences in New York's urban classrooms with perspective and the indomitable flair of a storyteller. Listeners will be amazed, inspired, and delighted. His thirty-year teaching career is punctuated with small triumphs, pitfalls, and difficult choices, but always candor and respect for his students. McCourt's rendition of the accents of his 1950s' Staten Island students, delivered in his Irish brogue, is a unique treat that a print reader would miss. This is a tidy abridgment, and listeners will enjoy what audio memoirs do best. R.F.W. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:920
  • Text Difficulty:4-5

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