McCourt has a compelling style of writing, an extraordinarily masculine style (I don't know what this means exactly, but if I were ever to try to pin down what I thought made for "masculine" writing, I'd definitely look at McCourt's book, if only to avoid the traditional recourse to Hemingway). One thing that was nice about it was that it was a memoir that happened to be about a period in his life when he was a teacher -- i.e. that happened to be about teaching. It clearly wasn't a "teacher memoir" in the traditional sense.

McCourt came off as a compelling teacher, because he is almost certainly a compelling storyteller and a compelling person to listen to. It was clear he did some good things in his classroom. But, to me at least, he didn't seem as annoyingly perfect or pedantic as other teachers I read in teacher school. He also (refreshingly) refuses to analyze or justify many of his most compelling (and strange) moments of pedagogy. There were almost certainly students who were ill-served by McCourt and who couldn't stand him. There were also years when I imagine he wasn't a very good teacher. And, of course, there were surely many students he made a great impact on and many more who dearly loved him.

In the end what drove this forward was the mixture of classic teacher-man stories (think Dead Poet Society) and McCourt's brisk, snappy sections of teacher/student dialog.

I guess I also fundamentally share McCourt's main teaching insight, which is that it's hard to represent "the system", that it makes sense when kids resist authority and that often you most sympathize (and even like) the very kids you have to reprimand for wasting the class's time.

A very different book to Angela’s Ashes. It’s like listening to a witty, self-deprecating yet passionate man tell you stories of his life. You can even hear his accent.

McCourt talks about his time as a teacher; how it came about, his successes and failures, his talent for telling stories.
In other hands, this could read as one long ego trip. But this man is, was, a master storyteller. He draws you in with his confidences and asides, making you believe you’re sharing his secrets.

I met Susan Jane Gilman a couple of years ago. She’s a successful writer of memoir and funny anecdotes that had me snorting in hog-like fashion. She was one of Frank’s students at Stuyvesant High School and talked about him with such enthusiasm I just had to read his side of the experience. So I smiled when I came to this line in Teacher Man‚ “Susan Gilman never raises her hand. Everything is too urgent.”

The other thing that appealed to me throughout this book is his clear belief in firing young minds with the value of imagination. He loved sharing his enthusiasm for literature and writing, and it’s evident from these pages that he was a terrific teacher. This is a gentle read, filled with quietly emotional moments which make you smile, nod and choke up. I’d love to have been in his Creative Writing class.

My fourth book by Frank McCourt and I am still impressed.

Teacher Man (2005) is the last book of his 3-part tragicomic memoir and it is about his experiences as a teacher in at least 3 schools in New York. He spent 33 years teaching high school students before he retired at the age of 60 and wrote his first book, Angela's Ashes at the age of 66. The book changed his life tremendously. He won a Pulitzer in 1997. National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996. He met President Bush, Lady Diana and other well-known personalities because of it. However, looking back, what he most treasured in his life was the opportunity to influence the many future American citizens. The schools were he taught at? vocational and technical school (McKee), adult education - teaching English to immigrants mostly mothers(New York City College of Technology) and later in the Harvard-equivalent for high school in the US: Stuyvesant High School where only the brightest high students are admitted. So, McCourt had enough challenges and to be able to survive that long means that he must have loved teaching. Afterall, teaching is said to be one of the noblest professions.

Although there is almost nothing about Ireland and his poor family background in this book, his funny and witty lines are still much evident. I particularly enjoyed his conversations with his students particularly the immigrants who did not know much about literature and grammar. Those poor immigrants who came to America during that time (early 70's to late 80's) barely knew English and thought of themselves as nobody and McCourt took patience in turning that wrong belief around. They ended up liking William Shakespeare and appreciating Hamlet. Something that I can relate with since I have not read Hamlet yet.

Ah, four lovely lovely books. It was nice knowing you, Frank McCourt!

I will now read those two books (Singing My Him Song and A Monk Swimming) by your brother Malachy McCourt (born 1931) and 1 book (A Long Stone's Throw (1998) by Alphie McCourt (born 1940). I wonder if these younger brothers of yours are also as brilliant as you are when it comes to writing memoirs :)

This is an unabridged version, read by author, running for 9 hours.

teacher man - frank mccourt - read by the author

tbr busting 2013
winter 2012/2013
fraudio
irish root
memoir
schoolzy
pub 2005

hm, ok - 2*

--------------------

Teacher Man is a 2005 memoir written by Frank McCourt which describes and reflects on his teaching experiences in New York high schools and colleges.

His pedagogy involves the students taking responsibility for their own learning, especially in his first school, McKee Vocational and Technical High School, in New York. On the first day he nearly gets fired for eating a sandwich, and the second day he nearly gets fired for joking that in Ireland, people go out with sheep after a student asks them if Irish people date. Much of his early teaching involves telling anecdotes about his childhood in Ireland, which were covered in his earlier books Angela's Ashes and 'Tis.

He then taught English as a Second Language and took some African American students to a production of Hamlet. He talks about when he was training as a teacher and didn't know anything about George Santayana, but was able to give a well-prepared lesson on the war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. Other highlights include his connection between how a pen works and how a sentence works (in explaining subjects and grammar, an area which he struggled with himself) and his use of resources like the students' excuse notes and cookbooks.

He taught from the time he was twenty-seven and continued for thirty years. He spent most of his teaching career at Stuyvesant High School, where he taught English and Creative Writing.

He earned a Teacher of the Year award in 1976. During the time of the book he went to Trinity College to try to take his doctorate, but he ended up leaving his first wife because of the strain.

McCourt's self-deprecating style emerges in descriptions of his shyness, lack of self-esteem, shame at gaps in his education, negative descriptions of his physical appearance, social ineptitude, jealousy when women with whom he has slept promptly leave him for other men, difficulties in his marriage, and a brief period of psychoanalytic treatment. These failures are compensated by successes, albeit often grudging and incomplete, in the classroom.

Wikipedia

Read by the author

An amusing book and the author can to spin a good yarn. It is noble that he sings the praises of being a teacher for it is a profession well worthy of being written of. However there are times where he seems self-absorbed and draws too much attention to himself (Woody Allen style).

The book can be a little too much of “McCourt and his students” instead of being “the students and McCourt”. There is self-centredness of how the students feel about the author. The writing can be wonderful when he focuses on the students rather than on his personal feelings.

There are needless tangents, like his trip back to Ireland. Plus some of the tales seem to spin out of control (exaggeration, embellished) – the hyperbole of whom he slept with on his ocean crossing to Ireland for one thing. These anecdotes should have been saved for a novel.

Okuduktan sonra Türkçe öğretmeni olan bir arkadaşıma önerip verdiğim ve geri alamadığım kitaplarımdan biri. Düşünüyorum da böyle böyle ne çok kitabım gitmiş!

Öğretmenlerin karşılaşacağı tuhaf durumları, idarecilerin kaoslar karşısındaki tutarsızlıklarını, meslek deneyimlerini, gülerek okuduğum sınıf yönetimi ve yazım kurallarını öğrencilere öğretme tekniklerini hatırlıyorum kitaptan.Eğitici ve eğlenceli olduğu kadar, yazarın yaşam öyküsünün paralelinde ilgiyle, keyifle okunuyor.

I am a sucker for anything to do with school teachers, so there was a great likelihood that I would enjoy this one, and I did, despite the fact that there were parts that went on for too long: sometimes 4 pages of the same story and the same words and phrases repeated to frustrating effect. At times the writer's self-deprecation pushed even a compulsive self-deprecator like me over the edge. But McCourt is also remarkably brave in his constant admission of his cowardice and for possessing a characteristic there is almost no use for in our contemporary life: humility. There are some remarkable moments here, tender without being sentimental, shocking without being sensational and educational without the accompanying pedantry. It also held some interest for me as a former New York resident and NYU student.
Most long term teachers will be able to relate to the portrayal of teaching as an exhausting, dispiriting but simultaneously exhilarating job. McCourt's stories manage to bring alive all these contradictions on the page.

This book is difficult to review. While I appreciated McCourt's attempt to recognize teachers (especially English teachers) and the work (often underappreciated) that we do, I felt that his theory of if we all "think outside the box" and try to be friendly with our students, than we will have a successful teaching career, a bit unrealistic, overly idealistic, and in many ways, condescending. While I do admire some of his methods, and enjoy his writing style, I found that the times when he let his true sentiments show (like telling a kid to stop being so ignorant and have some respect for the English language, or having days where you were just sick of whining teenagers...does that make me mean or already jaded?)or when he simply let the student anecdotes speak for themselves, were my favorite parts of the book. I do think this is a more honest perception of teaching (especially the first part where he is working in the "tougher" schools during his first few years) than many other movies I've seen that try to portray teaching. Some of the autobiographical stuff could have been left out--too much information sometimes.

Angela’s Ashes is toch wel echt veruit de beste van de drie!

Titolo: Ehi, prof!
Sottotitolo: I libri non sono oggetti. I libri hanno l'anima

Caro Frank, è ormai la terza volta che ti scrivo, ti do del tu perché ti conosco da quando eri un moccioso e vivevi a Limerick, e anche se sei morto professore a New York, io ti ricordo così, come quell'infelice infante irlandese e cattolico.
Siccome ormai abbiamo la confidenza adatta, e non mi piacerebbe essere disonesta nei tuoi confronti, te lo devo dire, ho pianto per le prime trenta pagine di questo ultimo libro. Ho pianto per quell'ultimo, anche se stavi scrivendo della tua a dir poco verosimile esperienza con l'insegnamento; onestamente credo sia da pochi riuscire a far piangere per la commozione mentre si stanno raccontando degli episodi che farebbero ridere anche il mio tutor di privato che è sempre stizzito per via del fatto che non muoiono i docenti e non si becca la cattedra. Separarmi dalle tue parole è stata una scelta per me dolorosa, ma dovuta e di coraggio, di bisogno sopratutto, perché volevo sentirmi dire da te che nella vita bisogna farsi spazio, che della vita bisogna saper apprezzare con un sorriso anche quelle situazioni in cui uno ha voglia solo di rinchiudersi in un bunker e sperare che i Maya o chi per loro c'avesse visto bene.

Non te lo dico, anzi, sì te lo dico, a costo di essere banalmente ripetitiva o insulsa: darei tutto ciò che ho per poter tornare indietro nel tempo, iscrivermi al Liceo Stuyvesant di New York e assistere alle tue lezioni di scrittura creativa.
Non tanto per l'insegnamento della scrittura creativa, dato che non ne sapevi granché, quanto per l'insegnamento di vita che m'avresti detto facendomi vedere che a volte bisogna imparare a scherzarci su, anche quando fa più male. Sorrido ad uno schermo di computer a pensare a te in cattedra, sprovveduto, infilato a forza nel ruolo di insegnante, che cercavi più di apprendere che di insegnare, che non esaurivi mai la curiosità e leggevi come leggo io, Fitzgerald come se fosse un diamante, non uno semplice scrittore.

Forse son troppo di parte, forse dovrei scriverti due note di rimprovero sul fatto che bevessi troppo, e che predicassi bene e razzolassi male, ma tutto ciò che vedo tra le tue parole, che son l'unico elemento che ho per poterti conoscere, è un'anima bella innamorata della speranza. Un po' come io non sono, un po' come io vorrei essere.

Ho letto le ultime venti pagine con una lentezza quasi stoica, con una ripugnanza per la fine che mi addolorava passo passo, parola dopo parola perché sapevo che ogni parola era una in meno verso la conclusione delle tue memorie. In generale sono abbastanza pettegola, e quando scopro un autore nuovo la prima cosa che voglio sapere era se fosse sposato/poligamo/single, se avesse vissuto scandali e tutte le cose da classici rotocalchi rosa.
Ma la tua vita l'ho letta in queste tre puntate perché dalla prima riga della prima pagina delle Ceneri di Angela sapevo - anche se tu non lo sai -, che questi libri li avevi scritti per me, affinché io imparassi. E quindi, svestitami dei panni della pettegola, ho indossato quelli della sensibilità così che ogni tua singola parola mi ha trapassata da lato a lato lasciandomi un segno, un segno che fosse una risata della grossa viste certe cagate che hai combinato, un segno che fosse un insegnamento visto certe vite che hai vissuto, che fosse un sostegno, visto che mi sei più di quanto siano molti altri.

Siccome poi odio essere sentimentale, lo sono stata abbastanza, e voglio che tutti ti odino, così che nessuno compri i tuoi libri e si legga le cose che hai scritto a me, io ti saluto Frank.

...Grazie

No puede no gustarme un libro escrito por este hombre. Lo mío con McCourt es algo personal, viene de hace muchos años y es como si lo conociera de toda la vida, como si fuera un familiar o un amigo muy cercano. Creo que todo el mundo debería leer al menos una vez en la vida "Las cenizas de Ángela", y estoy segura de que después no podría dejar de leer todos los libros que le siguieran. Frank McCourt es especial y te hace sentir especial a ti. Te hace pensar, sentir y replantearte prácticamente todos los aspectos relevantes de tu existencia. Para mí, un autor imprescindible.

Angela's Ashes is Frank McCourt’s Pulitzer prize-winner, but I’ve been attracted to this lesser-known memoir of his since I heard him promoting it on NPR years ago. His younger brother Malachy is also a favorite guest on NPR shows; I’ve heard him read two of his short stories on “Selected Shorts.” One of them was about an Irish doorman working in a Manhattan luxury building on Christmas, and it was absolutely hilarious. I admit I got the two brothers mixed up, but this book set me straight. Both of them are funny and incredibly talented.

Even without the author’s voice reading the book aloud, you can hear the Irish brogue just from the writing. The laughs begin right away, too. As a young, inexperienced teacher, Mr. McCourt has a sandwich thrown at him on his very first day of class. Establishing control is the bane of many a teacher, and Mr. McCourt has mere seconds to show what kind of teacher he is going to be. Will he be strict and yell at the kid? Will he ignore it and be perceived as weak? Actually, he does neither. His reaction is so off-beat, he takes the kids completely by surprise and wins them over. In so doing, he wins over his readers, too.

The rest of the book chronicles his growth as a teacher. He starts off at a vocational school with unmotivated students who need discipline and ends up at the elite Stuyvesant High School where the students demand quality teaching. Along the way, he reminisces about his childhood in Ireland and tells us about his failed marriage and brief return to the Old Country. Another Goodreader didn’t like the dips into McCourt’s personal life and wishes the book would have just stayed in the classroom. I can see the point, certainly about the failed marriage, which was the least interesting part of the book. But his pre-teaching days, particularly the overly strict Catholic education and the years spent working the docks, gave the book context. He was successful with his working class students, including some of the Stuyvesant students, because they knew he came from a world similar to theirs. The Stuyvesant section was definitely my favorite part, not just because he had mastered his style as a teacher by then but because he was teaching creative writing. He may have written Angela’s Ashes first, but some of the hints to its origins are in this book.

Since I dream of teaching and writing, it was inevitable that I’d like this book, but Frank McCourt is such a skilled storyteller, I think anyone would like it. Then again, he says all of us are writers anyway. Perhaps we’re all teachers, too.