Teacher and Inequality Paper Incorporating "Tis by Frank McCourt.
The book "Tis by Frank McCourt describes how a young man was able to leave his home in Ireland, by way of the U.S. Army, and went on the graduate from NYU with a degree in Literature (without having a high school diploma). He decides to become a teacher and he is placed at a vocational high school on Staten Island to teach English. He soon learns that schooling in America isn't what he was accustomed to in Ireland and tries to cope with the day to day issues that arise. In this paper I intend to describe situations that Frank McCourt wrote about using sociological concepts of cultural capital, hegemonic curriculum, and hidden curriculum/the gender code.
Description of General Setting.
Frank McCourt's first teaching position out of college was secured in 1958 by answering an ad in the New York Times for an English teacher at McKee Vocational and Technical High School on Staten Island. McCourt paints a picture of a school that is unruly, unorganized, and led by teachers and administrators that are only going through the motions. Most of the children at this school were of southern European decent and, he was told, they were studying to be auto mechanics or beauticians, therefore didn't really need to do well in these classes he was teaching. This teacher came into his classroom as a mid semester replacement for a teacher that the students described "didn't care". What he thought would be English he was to teach, turned into classes on Economic Citizenship and Social Studies, but most often turned into the task of "keeping students occupied". .
Description of the Issue of Inequality.
The issues of inequality are prevalent in this book. Having been raised and schooled in Ireland, Frank McCourt was accustomed to a sort of automatic respect for his teachers (who were mostly nuns and priests) and administrators. It was very common for his teachers to use an iron fist in their classrooms and control their students with physical repercussions.