Teacher Man (McCourt)

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Teacher Man:

1. Talk about the tension, described by McCourt, between the teachers and school administrators. How do the bureaucrats interfere with, even hinder, McCourt's efforts in the classroom? Does this tension exist in today's classrooms? Are teachers always right, especially in using unorthodox teaching methods? Or should administrators have powers of oversight to ensure students recieve quality or standardized instruction? At what point does interference become inhibiting to classroom creativity?

2. Discuss some of the ways in which McCourt motivated his students? What goes into making an inspired teacher?

3. This book has been seen as a "coming-of-age" story—in that it traces McCourt's development from an inexperienced teacher to a fully competent and confident one, capable of dealing both with recalcitrant students and interfering administrators. Can you trace the stages of McCourt's professional growth? In other words—what does he learn, how and when does he learn it?

4. What lesson did McCourt learn from the incident with the African-American girls at Seward Park High School and the Hamlet theater production?

5. McCourt believes that teachers are not given their proper due in society—they're the "downtown maid of professions." Do you agree with his assessment? Should teachers be valued more and, if so, how do we go about doing so?

6. For McCourt teaching is about forming intellects, not simply "teaching to the test." But in reality, students need to score well on assessment/achievement tests in order to do well in life. Can this ongoing contradiction ever be resolved?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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