Teacher Man

Perhaps you have heard of the international bestseller, Angela's Ashes, written by Frank McCourt.  Does anyone know what Mr. McCourt did before he wrote his bestseller at 66 years-old?  He taught english/grammar in a New York City public high school for 33 years.

What followed that book was Teacher Man.  It is called that because the kids pose their questions in that thick New York accent of, "Hey, teacher man!"   It tells about how he became to be a teacher in New York public schools and how he almost got fired on the first two days of his career; the first day he ate the sandwich a kid threw in class the next day he made a casual comment about having a relationship with a sheep, which was more innocent than it sounds.

He then goes on to talk about what is was like teaching in public school.  The challenges he faced to teach grammar to kids that did not see any need for it.  He talked about eventually linking what the kids did like to do with what he was trying to teach them so that they ended up learning grammar.

I bring up this book as a must read because I am tired of hearing culinary educators say, "well the stuff you do works because you teach at Purdue and I teach at blah, blah, blah."  Horse shit, I say.  If you want to learn some tricks on reaching kids that are unreachable drop McCourt's audio book in your car's CD player and listen and learn.  Really, stop blaming students for their "not wanting to learn" and find out what they like doing and reach them that way.  If McCourt can teach grammar to lower socioeconomic kids in NYC public high school you can teach your kids how to bake a cake.  Go for it!