A Summary of Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

Prologue

McCourt reflects upon his life, the childhood hardships that gave way to his adulthood struggles with perpetual insecurity, and the disbelief of his own success. The way real life happens is never the way you would have imagined it to be.

PART 1

Chapter 1- Insecurity: Where am I and how did I get here?

On McCourt’s first day of teaching he is anxious and completely unprepared. He pictures himself commanding the attention and respect of the class, and quickly replaces this thought with negative self-talk. He is an invisible man at the front of the classroom and has no idea where to begin. Then someone throws a sandwich. McCourt takes it, and while the class expects discipline, he eats it instead (16).

Still convinced of his inability to teach, McCourt begins to tell stories. He realizes that the job requires him to take on multiple roles besides teacher, and just like in his own life, he has to navigate his own way through. His early encounters with administration teach him to dislike the “bureaucrats, the higher-ups, who have escaped the classroom only to turn and bother the occupants of those classrooms” (24).

Chapter 2 – Insecurity: I’m not the ultimate authority; I’m practically a fraud

To McCourt, teaching becomes telling stories about his youth. The source of his many insecurities begin to emerge, such as his difficulty fitting into either America or Ireland because of his blended accent (27), the constant guilt engrained into him by his Irish school teachers over his own short comings and Original Sin (29), or his humble beginnings after returning to New York (33).

Chapter 3 – Insecurity: standing up for oneself

After two years in the army, McCourt earns a degree at New York University. He is in unquestioning awe of the knowledge and authority of his professors and longs to have that kind of respect and expertise. When an attractive student from his class shows interest in McCourt, he is easily taken in. She manipulates his lack of confidence, which is even more damaging to McCourt’s self-esteem because he cannot find the backbone to stand up to her the way he would like to.

Nerves get to him in his teacher’s license examination, but he passes and impresses one of his examiners by engaging the students with a story about World War I and then having them carry on the majority to discussions thereafter (52-54). Finding a job proves more difficult on account of his accent and he returns to dockside work.

Chapter 4 – Insecurity: But what if I’m no good?

Despite having a teaching license, McCourt’s fears and insecurities prevent him from working as a teacher and he retreats to the safety of dockside labour. It is interesting that as a child, school was not a place of positive experiences for McCourt, and as an adult he feels no more confident in school as a teacher than he did as a student.

Chapter 5 – Pressure to conform: What to teach and how to teach it

The question of what to teach and how to teach it arises for McCourt when he perceives that getting down to the grind of writing paragraphs has little relevance to the real life of teenagers at a technical high school. At the same time he meets parents that have traditional opinions about what should be taught in an English class. He is confronted with pressures to be a stern, no-nonsense teacher but cannot follow through. His students disengage (77). He quickly slides back into a style of teaching where learning involves animated class discussion and story (78-80).

Chapter 6 – Epiphany: We’ll do it their way

McCourt becomes familiar and rather impressed with the creative and well-crafted forged note. Wanting that effort to translate into the classroom, McCourt has the class write their own excuse notes and ventures into more difficult topics such as Adam to God, Hitler, and other infamous people in history. The class loves it, he loves it, and administration even loves it – with minor reservations.

Chapter 7 – Empathy: They’re human, emotional, and as fragile as me

McCourt’s past helps him to empathize with his own students and makes him more aware of the impact of his words and actions. He recalls three scenarios. In the first, an angry parent storms into the classroom to beat some sense into his son after McCourt made a call home (91). He quickly realizes calling home could worsen the situation. In the second scenario, he tries to monitor what he says aboutThe Scarlet Letter in the face of ethnic-romantic tensions in the classroom (93). In the third scenario, he acknowledges a troubled teen that everyone else has given up on, and includes him in the class without treating him like a lost cause (95-99). Despite having so little time for each student, McCourt is able to see students as more than just faces. They are human beings with their own set of vulnerabilities.

Chapter 8 – Knowledge vs. the value of a person

McCourt sought more self worth in having more knowledge. He longed for the kind of recognition and respect that he perceived his professors to have. This begins to change when an educated acquaintance condescends to him in front of others leaving him humiliated (105).

When it comes to his students, McCourt does not judge their worth nor intelligence based on test results (107). He uses what one might call a generous marking system that enables more students to pass the state English exam. He openly disagrees with a colleague who does not think he should allow students to reach beyond their grasp (109).

PART 2

Chapter 9 – Cultural blind spots

McCourt takes a job for a year lecturing at a community college, teaching tired, working class adults who are there for credit in the hope of career advancement. He runs into some cultural “blind spots” when he is challenged on things he takes for granted as common sense, such as attendance, footnoting, or florid style writing. It bothers McCourt that none of his adult students believe their opinion matters. Perhaps because it has taken McCourt years to realize that his own opinion matters.

His next position is equally brief and he clashes with the administrator’s personality. One day he loses patience with a defiant student and slaps him in the face with a magazine. He had assumed the student was Cuban, but later learns the student was struggling with exclusion from his community and peers on account of his Cuban-Irish background and sexual orientation.

Chapter 10 – Clash of Civilizations

His new school is very diverse, and McCourt is teaching students from all continents. Many of them are learning English, so he shares his own stories of learning English in America (132) and allows the students to share stories that validate their own experience.

His most difficult class of 29 black females is described as a “gender clash; generation clash; culture clash; racial clash” (136). To have any hope in this class means to have the alpha female on his side. So, McCourt agrees to take the class on a field trip because that is what they want. He tolerates some embarrassment at their rowdy behaviour but it’s a small price to pay in the larger scheme of giving them the same opportunities any other class would have.

Chapter 11 – Tough Disciplined Teacher

McCourt struggles with his role and is determined to become a “tough, disciplined teacher, organized and focused” (147). He is faced with a student in his class who sits with his chair leaning on two legs. McCourt wants to show his authority in front of the class and disciplines the student, embracing the student in front of this girlfriend and other students. The following day he finds out that the child’s mother, who McCourt once knew well, has died and the student if forced to leave to live with his step-father.

After discussions with his wife McCourt decides to attend Trinity College to complete his PhD in English on “Irish-American Literary Relations, 1889-1911” (173). He fails and returns to America. His wife is pregnant and replaces her at her school during her parental leave. He makes a rude comment to the principal and is fired at the end of the term.

PART THREE – Coming Alive in Room 205

Chapter 12 – The Birth of a New Teacher

At Stuyvesant High School McCourt teaches a new cliental of students. These are the students who come from prosperous families and will likely attend college. He has an administrator that believes in his abilities and allows him to experiment and teach freely in the classroom. In his third year McCourt is invited to teach a creative writing course where he encourages students to write from their own experiences.

At forty-nine, when his daughter is only eight, McCourt’s marriage collapses and he eventually ends up living in an apartment above a waterfront bar in Brooklyn.

Chapter 13 – Creative Teaching

McCourt begins to develop his own style and comfort in the classroom admitting to students when he does not know the answer and declaring to the students that they are one and the same and that together teacher and student would develop and teach the class. The creative writing class was an elective yet the class was full every semester with so many students there would not be sufficient seating.

A student offers a piece of marzipan to McCourt at the beginning of one class. Other students too want to show off their culinary skills and so in a following class the students bring many different types of foods to share and the students have a picnic in the park. This flourishes into sharing of recipes in subsequent classes to music and song. McCourt enjoys the experience immensely but struggles with what others might think of his teaching.

Chapter 14 – Teaching Subjects

Internal struggles continue for McCourt between being the organized and orderly teacher and the creative teacher. He has the class study and analyze poetry and non-fiction pieces but he does so in an unconventional way using accessible selections for the students such as fairy tales, restaurant reviews and obituaries. He realizes that the material being taught is not as important as the students learning.

Chapter 15 – Open School Day

Parents come to the school to meet McCourt and discuss the progress of their child in the class. McCourt is given insight into the lives of the students in a way that he had not previously known. He encounters parents who are in the process of divorce and parents who are so vested in their child’s’ future they have lost sight of what is important to the child. McCourt sees the student’s as individuals and encourages them to follow their own desires.

Chapter 16 – “Every moment of your life, you’re writing” (244)

McCourt is able to find a way to reach the students inspiring them to write about their own experiences encouraging even the most unmotivated to write meaningful pieces about their own lives. He inspires students to talk with elderly relatives learning about their life experiences and developing their own sense of identity based on what may or may not have shaped their predecessors in the past.

McCourt allows students to provide self-evaluations for the course believing he is opening the doors to freedom of thought for the students.

Chapter 17 – The last years

Teacher Man is nearing the end of his career and feels his age. Although most days he is positive about teaching and is encouraged by the thought of doing something he loves, he is tired and ready to move on. McCourt gives advice to a new teacher

Find what you love and do it. That’s what it boils down to. I admit I didn’t always love teaching. I was out of my depth. You’re on your own in the classroom, one man or woman facing five classes every day, five classes of teenagers. One unit of energy against one hundred and seventy-five units of energy, one hundred and seventy-five ticking bombs, and you have to find ways of saving your own life…if you hang on you learn the tricks. It’s hard but you have to make yourself comfortable in the classroom…You are with the kids and, as long as you want to be a teacher, there’s no escape…It’s you and the kids. So, there’s the bell. See you later. Find what you love and do it. (255)

On the last day of McCourt’s career a student shares a story of his experiences living through an accident which left him partially paralyzed on one side of his body. The student embraces the experience stating that it has given him a new perspective on life.

The bell rings and the students spray McCourt with confetti. Through the hall a student calls “Hey, Mr. McCourt, you should write a book.” (257)

Chapter 18 – I’ll try.