Teacher Man

For Frank McCourt, the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Angela's Ashes, writing serves as a vehicle through which the past can be examined. This is the case in Teacher Man, a memoir that examines the author's experiences as a high school English teacher in New York City's public school system. In many ways the book is not unlike other accounts written about teaching. The author complains about school administrators, and depicts a bureaucratic system that treats students like products as opposed to people. What makes Teacher Man unique, however, is McCourt's objective. Throughout the text he reflects on the extent to which his identity as a teacher was embedded in his lived experiences. "I had to find my own way of being a man and a teacher," McCourt writes, "and that is what I struggled with for thirty years in and out of the classrooms of New York City" (p. 20).

In Teacher Man McCourt recalls his long and arduous journey through teaching. As a novice in the classroom he questions his ability to do the job, and worries that he is cheating students out of the education they would have received if they had worked with a more "qualified" teacher. That McCourt’s pedagogical practices are unconventional is certain. In addition to other things, he asks the students to compose "excuse notes" for famous figures (i.e., Adam and Eve, Judas, Al Capone), perform literary readings of recipes, and debate the aesthetics of fairy tales and nursery rhymes. Most significantly, he tells stories. "It was clear," he confesses, "I was not cut out to be the purposeful kind of teacher who brushed aside all questions, requests, complaints, to get on with the well-planned lesson. That would have reminded me of that school in Limerick where the lesson was king and we were nothing. I was already dreaming of a school where teachers were guides and mentors, not taskmasters" (p. 24).

The stories McCourt shares in Teacher Man are designed to provide the reader with a glimpse into both his classroom and his past. The tales die-hard fans have come to love are all here; the cruelties the author suffered at the hands of schoolmasters; the nagging sense of self-doubt he experienced as a result of his Catholic upbringing. By sharing his stories with his students McCourt forges a unique relationship with them. At the very least, they are always eager to hear more. "Hey, teacher man," they shout, "you got any more stories?" (p. 38). To their delight, his reserve is endless.

In addition to entertainging students, McCourt's stories serve as a vehicle that allows him to reflect on his life. This is one of the work's strengths, for in laying bare his past he shows himself to be a person with dreams and aspirations, many of which lay beyond the classroom. "I wanted to be something adult and significant," he explains," going to meetings, dictating to my secretary, sitting with glamorous people at long mahogany boardroom tables, flying to conventions, unwinding in trendy bars, sliding into bed with luscious women, entertaining them before and after with witty pillow talk, commuting to Connecticut" (p. 184). What he gets instead is a career in the classroom, one he is never wholly able to leave. His peers often caution him to avoide sharing personal stories with students. "They're kids," they tell him. "You're the teacher. You have a right to privacy... You can never get back the bits and pieces of your life that stick in their little heads. Your life, man. Tell 'em nothing" (p. 20). One is left to wonder whether this possible in a profession that depends on share relationships between students and teachers.