Frank McCourt - Teacher Man

Tell her it was the most delicious sandwich I ever had in my life, Petey.

OK.

Mea culpa .

Instead of teaching, I told stories.

Anything to keep them quiet and in their seats.

They thought I was teaching.

I thought I was teaching.

I was learning.

And you called yourself a teacher?

I didn’t call myself anything. I was more than a teacher. And less. In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.

In the teachers’ cafeteria veterans warned me, Son, tell ’em nothing about yourself. They’re kids, goddam it. You’re the teacher. You have a right to privacy. You know the game, don’t you? The little buggers are diabolical. They are not, repeat not, your natural friends. They can smell it when you’re going to teach a real lesson on grammar or something, and they’ll head you off at the pass, baby. Watch ’em. Those kids have been at this for years, eleven or twelve, and they have teachers all figured out. They’ll know if you’re even thinking about grammar or spelling, and they’ll raise their little hands and put on that interested expression and ask you what games you played as a kid or who do you like for the goddam World Series. Oh, yeah. And you’ll fall for it. Next thing is you’re spilling your guts and they go home not knowing one end of a sentence from the other, but telling the moms and dads about your life. Not that they care. They’ll get by, but where does that leave you? You can never get back the bits and pieces of your life that stick in their little heads. Your life, man. It’s all you have. Tell ’em nothing.

The advice was wasted. I learned through trial and error and paid a price for it. I had to find my own way of being a man and a teacher and that is what I struggled with for thirty years in and out of the classrooms of New York. My students didn’t know there was a man up there escaping a cocoon of Irish history and Catholicism, leaving bits of that cocoon everywhere.

My life saved my life. On my second day at McKee a boy asks a question that sends me into the past and colors the way I teach for the next thirty years. I am nudged into the past, the materials of my life.

Joey Santos calls out, Yo, teach….

You are not to call out. You are to raise your hand.

Yeah, yeah, said Joey, but…

They have a way of saying yeah yeah that tells you they’re barely tolerating you. In the yeah yeah they’re saying, We’re trying to be patient, man, giving you a break because you’re just a new teacher.

Joey raises his hand. Yo, teacher man….

Call me Mr. McCourt.

Yeah. OK. So, you Scotch or somethin’?

Joey is the mouth. There’s one in every class along with the complainer, the clown, the goody-goody, the beauty queen, the volunteer for everything, the jock, the intellectual, the momma’s boy, the mystic, the sissy, the lover, the critic, the jerk, the religious fanatic who sees sin everywhere, the brooding one who sits in the back staring at the desk, the happy one, the saint who finds good in all creatures. It’s the job of the mouth to ask questions, anything to keep the teacher from the boring lesson. I may be a new teacher but I’m on to Joey’s delaying game. It’s universal. I played the same game in Ireland. I was the mouth in my class in Leamy’s National School. The master would write an algebra question or an Irish conjugation on the board and the boys would hiss, Ask him a question, McCourt. Get him away from the bloody lesson. Go on, go on.

I’d say, Sir, did they have algebra in olden times in Ireland?

Mr. O’Halloran liked me, good boy, neat handwriting, always polite and obedient. He would put the chalk down, and from the way he sat at his desk and took his time before speaking you could see how happy he was to escape from algebra and Irish syntax. He’d say, Boys, you have every right to be proud of your ancestors. Long before the Greeks, even the Egyptians, your forefathers in this lovely land could capture the rays of the sun in the heart of winter and direct them to dark inner chambers for a few golden moments. They knew the ways of the heavenly bodies and that took them beyond algebra, beyond calculus, beyond, boys, oh, beyond beyond.

Sometimes, in the warm days of spring, he dozed off in his chair and we sat quietly, forty of us, waiting for him to wake, not even daring to leave the room if he slept past going-home time.

No. I’m not Scotch. I’m Irish.

Joey looks sincere. Oh, yeah? What’s Irish?

Irish is whatever comes out of Ireland.

Like St. Patrick, right?

Well, no, not exactly. This leads to the telling of the story of St. Patrick, which keeps us away from the b-o-r-i-n-g English lesson, which leads to other questions.

Hey, mister. Everyone talk English over there in Ireland?

What kinda sports didja play?

You all Catlics in Ireland?

Don’t let them take over the classroom. Stand up to them. Show them who’s in charge. Be firm or be dead. Take no shit. Tell them, Open your notebooks. Time for the spelling list.

Aw, teacher, aw, Gawd, aw man. Spelling. Spelling. Spelling. Do we haveta? They moan, B-o-r-i-n-g spelling list. They pretend to bang their foreheads on desks, bury their faces in their folded arms. They beg for the pass. Gotta go. Gotta go. Man, we thought you were a nice guy, young and all. Why do all these English teachers have to do the same old thing? Same old spelling lessons, same old vocabulary lessons, same old shit, excuse the language? Can’t you tell us more about Ireland?

Yo, teacher man…. Joey again. Mouth to the rescue.

Joey, I told you my name is Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt, Mr. McCourt.

Yeah, yeah. So, mister, did you go out with girls in Ireland?

No, dammit. Sheep. We went out with sheep. What do you think we went out with?

The class explodes. They laugh, clutch their chests, nudge, elbow one another, pretend to fall out of their desks. This teacher. Crazy, man. Talks funny. Goes out with sheep. Lock up your sheep.

Excuse me. Open your notebooks, please. We have a spelling list to cover.

Hysterics. Will sheep be on the list? Oh, man.

That smart-ass response was a mistake. There will be trouble. The goody-goody, the saint and the critic will surely report me: Oh, Mom, oh, Dad, oh, Mr. Principal, guess what teacher said in class today. Bad things about sheep.

I’m not prepared, trained or ready for this. It’s not teaching. It has nothing to do with English literature, grammar, writing. When will I be strong enough to walk into the room, get their immediate attention and teach? Around this school there are quiet industrious classes where teachers are in command. In the cafeteria older teachers tell me, Yeah, it takes at least five years.

Next day the principal sends for me. He sits behind his desk, talking into the telephone, smoking a cigarette. He keeps saying, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’ll speak to the person involved. New teacher, I’m afraid.

He puts the phone down. Sheep. What is this about sheep?

Sheep?

I dunno what I’m gonna do with you. There’s a complaint you said “dammit” in class. I know you’re just off the boat from an agricultural country and don’t know the ropes, but you should have some common sense.

No, sir. Not off the boat. I’ve been here eight and a half years, including my two years in the army, not counting years of infancy in Brooklyn.