Thank You, Teacher Man

I know mine will be one of the thousands (millions?) of tributes paid to the dear Mr. McCourt, but the thankful teacher in me just couldn't resist.

I came to Teacher Man a little wary of Frank McCourt. I was, it seems, the only person in the world that didn't love Angela's Ashes. But I'd heard that it was a "must read" for a new teach like myself and so I did as I was told. And. I. LOVED. it.

What did I love the most?

That it was so damn honest.

And funny.

And more than a little bit ugly.

I loved that, as a teacher for 40+ years in the New York City school system, Frank McCourt was still humbled and awed by the task of teaching and changing young people.

(And I REALLY loved that it/he gave me perhaps my greatest teaching inspiration to date: as part of his "advanced" English course at Stuyvesant, he and his students taught each other recipes. Chicken Cattioatore as literature. Brilliant.)

Also, one final note: As I was listening to a rebroadcast of a interview he did on the Brian Lehrer show a few years back, I was struck by how he insisted on being introduced. Brian Lehrer was naturally introducing him as the author of two best selling novels/phenomenons, and Frank McCourt stopped him and said, "And a teacher. That's what I've been first and the most. A teacher."