Teacher Man:
By Frank McCourt
     

• I’ve only ever had one parent ask if her child was enjoying school.  All they care about is success and
  money, money, money.  They have expectations for their kids, high hopes, and we’re like workers on an
  assembly line sticking a little part in here, another little part in there till the finished product comes out at the
  end all ready to perform for parent and corporation.
  

     

• McCourt had kids write excuse notes for famous people throughout history in order to get them interested
  in grammar.  He had found that the phony notes that he received from many of them were some of the
  students’ best work.
  

     

• Telling stories to the students can help build a connection with them.  Allowing them to hear about some of
  your own mistakes lets them know that it’s ok to screw up and furthers that connection.
  

     

• “It’s too late.  I’ve gone behind their backs, shown I can’t handle the situation myself.  There’s no respect for
  teachers who send you to the office or call parents.  If you can’t handle it yourself you shouldn’t even be a
  teacher.  You should get a job sweeping the streets or picking up the garbage.”
  

     

• You have to make your own way in the classroom.  You have to develop your own style, your own
  techniques.  You have to tell the truth or you’ll be found out.
  

   

The only two subjects that can get a teenager’s attention are sex and food.  You gotta be careful with sex.  He
had the students write food reviews for the cafeteria and received a very positive response.  Then he had them
bring in recipes of their own to present as poetry to the class.
     
Why not forget English and college preparation altogether and turn the classroom into a kitchen with
demonstration lessons on cooking?
          
1) It’s too late.  I can’t walk in tomorrow and tell them it’s all over, forget the cookbooks, no more recipes.
          
2) Hadn’t we had three days of complete class participation?  And, most of all, teacher man, didn’t you enjoy
yourself?

3) Are the kids on to you?  Playing you along with the recipes and the music?  Mea culpa time.  Are you, under it
all, a fraud?  Playing along with the way they’re playing you along?  You can imagine what they’re saying in the
teachers’ lounge:  The Irishman has his classes completely duped.  All they do is- man, you won’t believe this- all
they do is read cookbooks.  Yeah.    

4) Why not?  What the hell.  What are schools for anyway?  I ask you, is it the task of the teacher to supply
cannon fodder for the military-industrial complex?  Are we shaping packages for the corporate assembly line?

  
Grading
I’ll tell you how I arrive at a grade.  First, how was your attendance?  Even if you sat quietly in the back and
thought about the discussions and the readings, you surely learned something.  Second, did you participate?  Did
you get up there and read on Fridays?  Anything.  Stories, essays, poetry, plays.  Third, did you comment on the
work of your classmates?  Fourth, and this is up to you, can you reflect on this experience and ask yourself what
you learned?  Fifth, did you just sit there and dream?  If you did, give yourself credit.
     
This is where the teacher turns serious and asks the Big Question:  What is education, anyway?  What are we
doing in this school?  You can say you’re trying to graduate so that you can go to college and prepare for a
career.  But, fellow students, it’s more than that.  I’ve had to ask myself what the hell I’m doing in the classroom.  
I've worked out an equation for myself.  On the left side of the blackboard I print a capital ‘F’, on the right side
another capital ‘F’.  I draw an arrow from left to right, from FEAR to FREEDOM.
     
I don’t think anyone achieves complete freedom, but what I am trying to do with you is drive fear into a corner.

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