Whether you agree with his style of teaching or not, the man can write. I've read Angela's Ashes (actually listened to him reading his own book on audio). And I truly loved his writing. This book, well, there are times when I'm like, what the heck kind of teacher are you? But, like me, he really is a late bloomer.
So many stories of his students reminded me of my recent visit to NYC. My love and I went to visit the Tenements in NYC. We thought that it was a part of the National Parks because it's on their website. But it's really it's own thing. It's where the term "sweat shop" was originated. And so we saw actual, original sweat shops in the original garment district of NY. You can't go and not hear, also, about the lives of immigrants fighting to make a way to make the American dream happen for themselves or their progeny. This just added to those stories because McCourt is also a kind of immigrant. It's just fascinating.
But I also learned a bit about pedagogy. The last 1/4 of the book really resonated with me.

E' il primo libro di McCourt che mi capita di leggere, anche se Adelphi ne ha pubblicati altri due, sempre autobiografici. In questo l'autore si concentra sui suoi lunghi anni d'insegnamento nelle scuole superiori di New York. La prima parte è molto divertente, brillante, si simpatizza subito con questo "povero" professore costretto ad avere a che fare con branchi di alunni adolescenti senza controllo. La seconda parte è invece più frammentata, non so se fosse stanco di scrivere, ma sembra aver riunito alcuni ricordi su vari alunni e situazioni grottesche, educative, buffe, strazianti, e averle riunite in sequenza senza un filo logico molto lineare, ma merita di sicuro di essere letto.

4 stars- English Ebook and Dutch paperback

A man saw me finish this book on a very crowded train and asked whether I enjoyed it. I was so happy to tell someone how much I loved this book and his other two.

I actually liked this one the least, but that barely matters. I loved it almost the same. He was an engaging and hilarious writer.

He would have been better if he'd been a tad more honest with himself about himself but I guess then he wouldn't be Frank McCourt. I'm sad he didn't leave us with more of his wonderful stories.

I do not like this book. I thought, "He's a teacher, I'm a teacher. I should read it," and "He wrote 'Angela's Ashes' which people seem to like, so I'll read it." I wish I'd left it alone. I actually bought the book for someone else, but then I decided to read it myself and give her something else. I'm glad I didn't give it as a gift.

Frank McCourt was a high school teacher in New York and is an immigrant from......Ireland! He was actually born in America, but his family moves to Ireland, and he moves back again. His writing makes it sound like he's really full of himself. I don't have a thing in common with this guy, as a person or as a teacher. I am really happy I don't teach in a big city, though, and this book showed me that. McCourt seems quite self-obsessed in this book. I couldn't even finish it! I only made it to part 3, and it's been sitting on my dresser ever since, collecting dust.

Tưởng hay nhưng rời rạc quá, giọng văn hài hước nhưng mình ko tìm thấy nhiều triết lý về giáo dục trong cuốn sách này.

Also heard this one read by the author on cd. Not nearly as good as 'Tis. I liked hearing about his life and the impersonations of students was somewhat amusing, if not repetitive and grating on the nerves, but I actually felt like this story was a little cheesy. It seemed like he fell back on a lot of cliches of that old standby, the uplifting story of the teacher who makes a difference. I don't think that this was at all intentional and I'm sure that he probably was as honest about his teaching as he was about everything else but it really just didn't interest as much...where was the new insight? The students could have jumped straight out of To Sir with Love...and he was just do disgruntled and depressed about his personal life that, while the teaching was what the book was supposedly about, it really seemed to play second fiddle and it didn't strike me as a story very different from any inner-city teacher (I've been there) and wasn't told in a new way. Basically, I felt like, what's the point? Did he think he was the only one who had these difficulties/experiences teaching? Too cheesy, too (surprisingly) unself-aware. Wow, that was harsh.

Bellissimo.

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.

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.

After falling in love with both Angela's Ashes and 'Tis, I couldn't wait to dive into Frank McCourt's third and final memoir. AA was amazing for completely different reasons, but I found myself truly drawn to Frank as a person in 'Tis when he spoke about his time teaching. Because of that, Teacher Man of course held very high expectations for me. Well, let me just say that it did not disappoint at all, and it comes as no surprise that this one is easily my favorite among the three! This book was wonderful from top to bottom. You can hear every bit of love that he has for his students as he talks about them all from the worst troublemakers to the best and brightest. I really enjoyed hearing about some of his more creative ideas and how the kids would get excited about things that no other teacher or administrator considered "proper education." I cried when he recalled meeting up with some of his students years later and the interactions that ensued. I laughed out loud at so many of the anecdotes, the remarks and quips from his students, and the rapid-fire debates that took place in Frank's classroom. I can only imagine what kind of world we might live in if all of our teachers held this kind of passion for the work and for their students.

I am glad I decided to finish this trilogy. I fell in love with the first book, left sad about the second one and again got under the spell of this, third one. I think it helped a lot that I have been listening to it (Listen! Are you listening?) on audio read by Frank McCourt himself. This is a charming, funny, sad, kind book.

I've always loved to read about teachers' experiences and methods, so Frank Court's Teacher Man perfectly matched my horizon of expectations, so to speak. It was emotional, entertaining, interesting and, of course, instructive. I especially liked the apparently random memories, and the fact that he insists upon personal events only when they have an impact on his teaching. I think it would have been a joy to see him in front of his students with his unorthodox but such efficient method of teaching that his students didn't even know they were taught.


P.S. I definitely have to read Angela's Ashes!