Teacher Man

Teacher Man is a 2005 memoir written by Frank McCourt which describes and reflects on his development as a teacher in New York high schools and colleges. It is in continuation to his earlier two memoirs, Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. Prologue The book begins with a Prologue, in which the author acknowledges the changes that took place in him because he wrote the first memoir. He became famous, the book sold in the millions and in many languages, a wholly unexpected result. He met many new people in his fame, especially other authors. He demonstrated the changes in himself by listing all the people and institutions that made his childhood so difficult leaving burdens of guilt he thought were his alone, and forgave them one by one. He had a "second act" in his life, and writing the first book, more so than telling the stories to students or putting them on stage, brought him to a point of maturity, able to shed the pain and guilt that impeded his happiness in life. Synopsis The memoir describes Frank McCourt's pedagogy, which involves the students taking responsibility for their own learning, especially in his first school, McKee Vocational and Technical High School, on Staten Island in New York City. On the first day he nearly gets fired for eating a sandwich, which a boy had thrown in front of his desk, 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 in response to questions from his students, which incidents were mainly covered in his earlier books Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. He explains the continuing effort of adolescents to divert him from the lessons he wants to teach; he slowly realizes the stories can be part of teaching English, as the stories have structure just like the novels the students are reading, and he uses the stories to segue into the course material. It benefits him to verbalize his upbringing and hear the reactions of the students, a topic he expected to leave behind him when he sailed to America. McCourt then teaches English as a Second Language, and also a class of predominantly African-American female students, whom he took to a production of Hamlet.