Teacher Man

by Frank McCourt

Thirty years teaching New York kids. He survived by storytelling.

For you if

you have ever stood in front of a classroom and improvised your way through a day and need someone to tell you that counts

⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡

Not sold directly on this site. Support indie bookstores with a new copy, or go sustainable with a used one.

Buy New on Bookshop.org

Supports independent bookstores

— OR —

Find Used on Better World Books

Secondhand & sustainable

$19 MSRP
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.

McCourt taught English in New York City public schools for thirty years — vocational schools, tough kids, impossible conditions, an administration that ranged from indifferent to hostile. He survived by telling stories. His own story: Irish immigrant, Angela's Ashes childhood, arrived in America with nothing. His students' stories. The stories in the books he was supposed to teach but mostly ignored in favor of whatever was actually happening in the room. McCourt writes about teaching the way a jazz musician talks about playing — as improvisation under pressure, as a daily negotiation between what you planned and what the room needs, as something that is simultaneously exhausting and alive. The most honest and funniest memoir about public school teaching ever written. The book that tells every teacher that surviving with your humor and humanity intact is its own form of heroism.

Where This Book Lives