"Frank McCourt writes about his experiences as a High School teacher over the space of 30 years as well as one very humbling year teaching at a Community College. He also writes about his failed attempts at obtaining a Ph.D., a degree he had hoped to receive in order to ascend to the ranks of college professors instead of trying to find creative ways to motivate largely disinterested and hormonally challenged High School students day in, day out, year in, year out.
Instead, he finds, in failure, and the return to the High School classroom, this time to the prestigious New York City Stuyvesant High School, and becomes one of the most popular teachers, with long waiting lists for entry to his classes. He finds it all very puzzling and thinks that perhaps he might be seen as being too easy, and so he starts actually trying to challenge his students, something at first they rebel against. As he works his skills in the classroom, he begins to find the emerging writer in himself."
"Nearly a decade ago Frank McCourt became an unlikely star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto the literary scene with Angela's Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize -- winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland. Then came 'Tis, his glorious account of his early years in New York. Now, here at last, is McCourt's long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is also an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises he faces in public high schools around New York City. His methods anything but conventional, McCourt creates a lasting impact on his students through imaginative assignments (he instructs one ...