Buckeye Schoolmaster: A Chronicle of Midwestern Rural Life, 1853-1865 Book

This book is difficult to review. While I appreciated McCourt's attempt to recognize teachers (especially English teachers) and the work (often underappreciated) that we do, I felt that his theory of if we all "think outside the box" and try to be friendly with our students, than we will have a successful teaching career, a bit unrealistic, overly idealistic, and in many ways, condescending. While I do admire some of his methods, and enjoy his writing style, I found that the times when he let his true sentiments show (like telling a kid to stop being so ignorant and have some respect for the English language, or having days where you were just sick of whining teenagers...does that make me mean or already jaded?)or when he simply let the student anecdotes speak for themselves, were my favorite parts of the book. I do think this is a more honest perception of teaching (especially the first part where he is working in the "tougher" schools during his first few years) than many other movies I've seen that try to portray teaching. Some of the autobiographical stuff could have been left out--too much information sometimes.