Thursday, February 16, 2006
Teacher Man
I've just finished reading my first teacher book. I'm sure I'll be getting more recommendations for teacher books I should read so I'll post a brief review of the ones I read. Consider it my public service a la "The Soup"... I read them so you don't have to.
I was recommended the book "Teacher Man," a memoir by Frank McCourt. He's a guy who taught English in New York City for 30 years. With all that experience I expected more from him in the way of insight into teaching difficult students. He spends a lot of time talking about various difficult students and difficult classes. Through it all he basically espouses a teaching philosophy that places the most import on keeping the kids quiet and entertained. Not bad goals, but I don't like the way he goes about it. His kids pretty much control his classes. He spends a lot of class time telling stories about his childhood and letting his kids tell stories about their lives. He doesn't seem to get much teaching done. He recognizes this and doesn't seem to care or think it's important. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe teaching English is different than teaching math or science. Maybe I don't get it yet.
I had a teacher in college I imagine being much like McCort. He taught computer science and spent much of the class telling stories. Everyone knew it, and everyone enjoyed it until the end of the semester. We had to do the last half of the syllabus in the week and a half before the final. We also had 3 labs combined into one big one due before the final. When it came down to that we lamented having our time and money wasted by this instructor.
I didn't get much besides entertainment out of this book until page 255 (out of 258). There he describes some advice he once gave a substitute teacher. He said you need to find what you love and do it. You need to make yourself comfortable in the classroom and hang on until you learn the tricks. It's not much advice, but it's all I found to be worth taking from this book.
I was recommended the book "Teacher Man," a memoir by Frank McCourt. He's a guy who taught English in New York City for 30 years. With all that experience I expected more from him in the way of insight into teaching difficult students. He spends a lot of time talking about various difficult students and difficult classes. Through it all he basically espouses a teaching philosophy that places the most import on keeping the kids quiet and entertained. Not bad goals, but I don't like the way he goes about it. His kids pretty much control his classes. He spends a lot of class time telling stories about his childhood and letting his kids tell stories about their lives. He doesn't seem to get much teaching done. He recognizes this and doesn't seem to care or think it's important. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe teaching English is different than teaching math or science. Maybe I don't get it yet.
I had a teacher in college I imagine being much like McCort. He taught computer science and spent much of the class telling stories. Everyone knew it, and everyone enjoyed it until the end of the semester. We had to do the last half of the syllabus in the week and a half before the final. We also had 3 labs combined into one big one due before the final. When it came down to that we lamented having our time and money wasted by this instructor.
I didn't get much besides entertainment out of this book until page 255 (out of 258). There he describes some advice he once gave a substitute teacher. He said you need to find what you love and do it. You need to make yourself comfortable in the classroom and hang on until you learn the tricks. It's not much advice, but it's all I found to be worth taking from this book.
