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Tyler Smalling

Dr. Frank Abrahams


Critical Pedagogy II
March 8th, 2015
Frank McCourts Teacher Man
In teaching, instructors must recognize they face not just a mind to be mended, but a
student as a whole; we are left to face their emotions, feelings, and physical well-being.
Traditional learning methods didactic forms of theory being lectured to students, forcing them
to memorize and absorb assume that a student is always ready to begin learning; but that isnt
always the case. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs suggests that if a person lacks basic physiological
and psychological needs, they have no foundation from which they can grow intellectually. What
makes Frank McCourts approach to teaching these students effective, then, is that he considers
how his students first respond to his lessons, and then adjusts his curriculum to lead their
personal development. In accordance with Maslows theories, McCourt is able to reach his
students by building relationships with them, giving them experiences and lessons that provide
them with encouragement, and then using that as a catalyst for his teaching.
McCourt leads his novel how he controls conversations with students: through humorous
anecdotes about his life that lead us to a greater understanding of what he wants to teach us. As a
child McCourt was subject to a harsh, rigid Irish school system, with unwaveringly cruel
instructors that drill their students on mundane topics like grammar and spelling. (29-31) As
McCourt began his career as a teacher in the United States, he realized that the opposite side of
the desk was not much different: principals peering in to classrooms and assigning agendas to be

taught without much flexibility or consideration of personality. This presents a serious dilemma
for McCourt: instead of dealing with disciplined students in an Irish Catholic school, he faces the
students of the New York school system, many of who are unruly and of little respect to his
authority as a teacher. A traditional approach is hopeless; but instead of giving in, McCourt
delves deeper in to how he would be able to reach his students.
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs is divided in to five layers, in ascending order:
physiological, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Each layer provides
the base for the next. An individual cannot necessarily say they are safe if they do not have food
or clothing, nor could a person develop their self-esteem when they lack an emotional assertion
of value from friends or family. At the peak of Maslows Hierarchy is where a persons mental
development lies: morality, creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. (Jerome,
Application of the Maslows hierarchy of need theory.) In this sense, a student is not able to
harness any of these abilities without having all of their prior needs met.
So imagine McCourts surprise when the beginning of his teaching career is met with
opposition from students who refuse to listen to or understand his lectures. It was not that he
wasnt explaining the content properly, it was that the content itself was too contrived when his
students did not have the desire to connect with it. The majority of McCourts students whether
Italians, Irishmen, Cubans, or even an class of entirely black teenager girls present themselves
with a disdain for English. McCourt fails to crack them, at first, because he is too focused on
what he can do to help himself, and not what he can do to help them.
McCourt faces numerous cultural barriers through his experiences as a teacher, not just in
race, but sexual orientation, cultural values, and language barriers. Many of the students he faces

are in the process of learning English, so he tries to connect with them by relating his
experiences as an immigrant from Ireland to them. He explains how it was for him when he
learned English, and encourages the students to share their personal stories as well. McCourt
creates a feeling of love and belonging, which fulfills one of the lower tiers of Maslows
pyramid. As D.E. Campbell states on The Work of Maslow, creating positive and nurturing
human relationships between teachers and students and among students is one of the most
important issues of school improvement. Young people do not learn math, reading, or English
well if they are intimidated, defensive, and fearful. (Campbell)
Leila Christenbury states in her piece The Flexible Teacher that Effective teachers
alter, adjust, and change their instruction depending on who is in the classroom and the extent to
which those students are achieving. (Christenbury) McCourt, for example, in chapter 7, when
he is instructing his students on The Scarlett Letter, realizes that there is tension in the room
that draws from the conflicting backgrounds of the students. He doesnt want to offend the
students with the material he is teaching, so he tailors his lesson based to what his students are
comfort and familiarize themselves with. This ties in to Maslows theory that one of the main
needs in someones development is safety and security. The familiarity he gives to his students
provides a comfort that facilitates what they need to learn, even if in a modified setting.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of McCourts book is that time and time again he seems
to regress in his methods of teaching. His anxieties and insecurities are apparent when he feels
the pressure of administrators, parents, and other English faculty bearing down on him. Multiple
times throughout the book namely after moments where his more freeform method teaching

appears to be reaching a glorious climax he collapses and returns to roughness, sturdiness, the
book-is-law.
While working in Stuyvesant High School, he jumps from a session of home cooking and
music to honing in on his syllabus and reciting his favorite poem. (213-215) In another instance,
he fails to reach out to students who are suffering, and as a result they fade off in to his regret,
such as the cross-ethnic couple Sal and Louise (93-95) He even goes as far as allowing one of his
students to be beaten by their parents in front of his entire class, due to a misguided phone call
home, or taking matters in to his own hands and slapping one of his own students, a fallback on
his ways that is reminiscent of the harsh treatment he received in Catholic school.
Throughout the memoir his wife, who laments him as a failure, and his own contrast with
his past and present contemporaries, who maintained strict control over their classrooms and
seemed to be prepping their students for bright futures, seem to haunt McCourt. He wants to
break free of the mold. He wants to fulfill needs that he knows are there, that other teachers may
not recognize; but his doubts are driven as if he is convinced he is just looking to be accepted by
his students, and that his pride will lead to their failure in life.
McCourts troubles represent a cycle: when students are deprived of developing as a
whole at a young age, it makes it nearly impossible for them to grow in the future. As in the
example of the adults he taught during his brief stint as an adjunct lecturer, his students were
inept to question and learn beyond what he fed them. The behavior he sees in his adults are
reflective of what he sees in his younger students: that the people in my classes, adults from
eighteen to sixty-two, thought their opinions did not matter. (119)

Martin and Joomis discuss in Building Teachers: A Constructivist Approach to


Introducing Education how After a deficiency need has been satisfied, a persons motivation to
satisfy it lessens. Unfortunately, many students come to school with the deficiency needs of
physiology, safety and security, love and belongingness, and self-esteem. (Martin, Joomis) In
chapter 11, a student in McCourts classroom starts problems and tries to show who the boss of
the classroom is. What McCourt doesnt realize is that the students mother had recently passed
away, and has been sent to live with his stepfather. In this case, the student may have been
coming to school looking for the needs mentioned above to be recognized. As a teacher one has
to take into consideration what the student might need during school because there is a lack of it
at home. In this case the student may not have been getting the security and love from home
therefore causing him to act out in school.
It takes McCourts realization that the struggles he faces with his self-esteem are the same
problems he must break down to reach his students. He watches one of his students get beaten
before his eyes by a brutish father; (91) he watches one student be shifted between teachers and
guidance counselors because they all have given up hope on him. And he begins to learn how to
empathize with them: though he does nothing to stop the student from being beaten, later in
Kevins example he decides to give him purpose by allowing him to fulfill a job in the
classroom. Even though he is not necessarily teaching Kevin, he makes him feel like
somebody believes in him, and this allows him to connect with and respect McCourt.
In a different example McCourt attempts to return to a traditional style of teaching by
focusing strictly on grammar. Hes met with a familiar result: the students do not listen, they do
not give in, and he becomes frustrated with their confused responses. Instead he turns the lesson

in to a story: he provokes the students imagination, catering to their creativity and interest. The
students become enthralled and passionate. They go on inspired tangents and become invested in
the lesson. (78-79) Subvertly McCourt has taught them grammar even a new word, gibberish
and they barely realize it. He is able to break down the barrier between his lesson and what
makes his students interested.
Why does this work so well? Because McCourt is taking in to consideration what makes
his students want to become involved. Through connecting with their emotions, he recognizes
what they need and adapts his lesson to that. As he states, You might be poor, your shoes might
be broken, but your mind is a palace. At the end of the day, he realizes that it doesnt matter
who the students are or where they come from; each of them has an untapped potential within
them that he as a teacher seeks to draw out of them.
McCourt may have failed at times to reach his students, but that is the result of
institutionalized differences that separate the student from the teacher. His victories against this
system are told in all of the students he manage to reach, and cumulates in the final scene of the
novel, where he is embraced with the love of the students in the same way he has expressed his
love and attention to them. McCourt learned through his transition to not only be a teacher, but a
friend to his students. Education is meant to reach farther than books and lectures it builds
individuals. The greatest lesson we can walk away from McCourts career with is that both the
teacher and the student must fulfill one anothers needs: as we learn from one another, so do we
support.

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References
Campbell, D. E. "The Work of Abraham Maslow." The Work of Abraham Maslow. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Christenbury, Leila. "Membership." Educational Leadership:The Effective Educator:The
Flexible Teacher. ASCD, n.d. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Jermone, Nyameh, Dr. International Journal of Business and Management Invention 2.3
(2013): n. pag. Ijbmi.com. Department of Economics Taraba State University. Web. <http://
www.ijbmi.org/papers/Vol(2)3/Version-2/G233945.pdf>.
Martin, D., and K. Joomis. Building Teachers: A Constructivist Approach to Introducing
Education. S.l.: Book On Demand, 2012. Web.

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