Or dealing with parents that have a very low idea of teachers.įor me, leaving construction work and grassroots organizing behind to go into teaching, this book has been more insightful than any of the classes I've taken so far. Or the tension of teaching poetry to New York's future dockworkers and hair dressers. Or didn't.Īs a teacher with a thick Irish accent in New York City, there's a lot to be learned from his classroom stories about cultural and racial classes. His best moments didn't come because he was a genious and a natural, but because he followed his gut, took a risk, worried about it for quite some time until it finally worked out. He has story after story that recaptures the mental haze of forging his own path. His constant self-doubting is incredibly human. High minded theories of pedogogy don't matter if you can't get the respect and attention of a room full of teenagers that have been in school going on 12 years straight. Early on, he laments that teaching-college doesn't prepare you at all for dealing with a real high school classroom. The author of Angela's Ashes brings us his self-deprecating reflections on a 30 year teaching career.
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