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Mccourt-Personal Narrative

682 Words3 Pages

SHAIKH FARHEEN KAMALUDDIN

F.Y.B.Ed Roll no.- 41

Hello ma'am,

As there was less time I just read part-1( 8 chapters )

On McCourt’s first day of teaching he was anxious and completely unprepared. He pictures himself commanding the attention and respect of the class, and quickly replaces this thought with negative self-talk. He is an invisible man at the front of the classroom and has no idea where to begin. Then someone throws a sandwich. McCourt takes it, and while the class expects discipline, he eats it instead.

Still convinced of his inability to teach, McCourt begins to tell stories. He realizes that the job requires him to take on multiple roles besides teacher, and just like in his own life, he has to navigate his own way through. …show more content…

It is interesting that as a child, school was not a place of positive experiences for McCourt, and as an adult he feels no more confident in school as a teacher than he did as a student.

The question of what to teach and how to teach it arises for McCourt when he perceives that getting down to the grind of writing paragraphs has little relevance to the real life of teenagers at a technical high school. At the same time he meets parents that have traditional opinions about what should be taught in an English class. He is confronted with pressures to be a stern, no-nonsense teacher but cannot follow through. His students disengage. He quickly slides back into a style of teaching where learning involves animated class discussion and story.

McCourt becomes familiar and rather impressed with the creative and well-crafted forged note. Wanting that effort to translate into the classroom, McCourt has the class write their own excuse notes and ventures into more difficult topics such as Adam to God, Hitler, and other infamous people in history. The class loves it, he loves it, and administration even loves it – with minor

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