UIN R E ADE RS

her Man
cCourt
 e*rr<T

Teacher Man
FRANK McCOURT
Level 4
Retold by Chris Rice
Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter
 Pearson Education Limited
Edinburgh Gate, Harlow,
Essex CM20 2JE, England
and Associated Companies throughout the world.
ISBN: 978-1-4058-8233-0
Published by arrangement with
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
© Frank McCourt 2005
First published 2007
This edition published 2008

Text copyright © Pearson Education Ltd 2008

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Acknowledgements
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for any unintentional omissions. We would be pleased to insert the appropriate
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 Contents
page
Introduction V

Chapter 1 Teaching 1
Chapter 2 A Sandwich Situation 3
Chapter 3 A Problem with Sheep 7
Chapter 4 Stories 10
Chapter 5 Open Day 12
Chapter 6 Grammar and Gibberish 17
Chapter 7 Excuse Notes 20
Chapter 8 Kevin 24
Chapter 9 The College Lecturer 28
Chapter 10 Fashion High School 33
Chapter 11 The Moon in the Lake 39
Chapter 12 A Trip to the Movies 42
Chapter 13 Hamlet 45
Chapter 14 Andrew and the Tilting Chair 47
Chapter 15 A Failed Everything 51
Chapter 16 Stuyvesant High School 52
Chapter 17 The Dinner Conversation 57
Chapter 18 Problems with Parents 60
Chapter 19 Bob and Ken 62
Chapter 20 Last Day in School 68
Activities 71
 Introduction
Petey threw his brown-paper sandwich bag at Andy ; and the class cheered
excitedly. The bag landed on the floor between the blackboard and Andy }s
desk.
I came from behind my desk and made the first sound of my teaching
career: “Hey. ”
They ignored me. I moved toward Petey and made my first teacher
statement: “Stop throwing sandwiches. ”
Petey and the class looked shocked.

This is how Frank M cCourt’s teaching career begins— and it

doesn’t get easier! As a young man, Frank McCourt leaves his
poor, miserable childhood in Ireland behind him and moves to
New York. He works hard and studies hard, and soon becomes
a teacher in a school where the students have no interest in
learning. Many of them are almost impossible to teach, with
terrible problems at home and in school. McCourt is faced with
students like Kevin Dunne, who nobody wants to teach, and
Serena, who causes many problems but, in the end, almost makes
him cry with happiness. There is Hector, who thinks that his
teacher is just another crazy, drunk, violent Irishman, and Andrew,
who angers McCourt but who knows a secret about his teacher’s
past.
For thirty years, from the 1950s to the 1980s, McCourt sails
the stormy seas of the New York education system. His stories of
classrooms, meetings with parents, disagreements with principals,
his own personal problems, and his hopes for the future are all
beautifully described. How will this caring, book-loving man
with his poor Irish childhood and low self-confidence survive the
classrooms of New York? What effect will his own special, unusual

v
way of teaching have on the bored, angry, confused students in his
classes? And what effect will they have on him ? This is a true story
Many readers may be surprised by the problems that Frank
McCourt finds in the classrooms of New York. Even today, when
more than 85% of adults in the U.S. have completed high school
and 27% have a university degree, there are many Americans who
have difficulty reading and writing. M cCourt’s experiences in
the second half of the last century are sad, amusing, interesting,
and entertaining, but they paint a thoughtful, often frightening,
picture of the expectations and realities of poor Americans.
There are two main types of high school in the U.S.: public and
private. About 10% of students go to private schools. The others
go to schools which are paid for by the government. Students
have to complete twelve years of education before they can go
to college or university. When McCourt was teaching, there were
many excellent public high schools—like Stuyvesant High School
in New York, where he taught for a time. But there were many
others—vocational high schools—which suffered from financial
difficulties, poor conditions, and low levels of success.
McCourt spends his first years as a teacher in these vocational
schools. He tries to interest his students in literature and ideas, but
it is difficult. The students want to leave school and earn money as
secretaries, hairdressers, or dock workers. In many ways, these are
unhappy years for McCourt because he thinks that he is failing.
But in other ways, they are a great success. His own difficult
childhood helps him understand his students’ problems, and his
special gifts as a teacher bring surprising, often amusing, results.
Frank McCourt was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1930,
but went to Ireland when he was four years old. There, he had
a tough, poor, miserable childhood. His father, Malachy, was
usually unemployed, and when he was earning, he spent much
of the money on alcohol. His mother, Angela, had to beg for
money from churches to feed her children. Frank became very
sick and almost died. While he was in the hospital, he was able
to eat regular meals for the first time—and there were books
to read. He first read Shakespeare in the hospital, and McCourt
remembers the importance of this in his first book, Angela's Ashes
(1996): “I don’t know what it means and I don’t care because it’s
Shakespeare and it’s like having jewels in my mouth when I say
the words.”
When he was nineteen years old, McCourt returned to New
York and earned a degree from New York University. That was
the beginning of his career as an English teacher. Angela's Ashes,
which describes his childhood in Ireland, came out when he was
sixty-six years old and has been made into a movie. Although it is
a sad, often upsetting story, it contains scenes of powerful beauty
and humor. The book was a great success, and McCourt received
the famous Pulitzer Prize for it in 1997. His second book, ’Tis
(1999) continues the story of his life, and his third book, Teacher
Man (2005), describes his life and experiences as a New York
school teacher.
His brother, Malachy, is also a writer. Together they wrote
the stage play A Couple of Blaguards, about their childhood
experiences.
Frank McCourt
 C hapter 1 T eaching
If I knew anything about psychology, I’d be able to blame all
my troubles on my miserable childhood in Ireland. That terrible
childhood took away my confidence and filled me with self-pity;
it made me afraid of my emotions, jealous of other people, unable
to obey orders, and frightened of the opposite sex. It also stopped
me from making progress in the world and made me unfit,
almost, for human society. So, its surprising that I ever managed
to become a teacher. I’m very proud of surviving all those years
in the classrooms of New York. There should be special prizes
for people who have survived miserable childhoods and become
teachers.
When I taught in New York City high schools for thirty years,
no one listened to me except my students. Outside the school I
was so unimportant that no one noticed me. Then I wrote a book
about my childhood, and I was suddenly famous. When the book
became a best-seller and was translated into thirty languages, I
couldn’t believe it.
My first book, Angela's Ashes , came out in 1996 when I was
sixty-six. The second, ’Tis , came out in 1999 when I was sixty-
nine. My new writer-friends had written their first books when
they were in their twenties. So, why did it take me so long?
I was teaching, that’s why. Not in college or university, where
you have plenty of time for writing and other activities, but in
four different New York City public high schools. When you
teach five high school classes a day, five days a week, you’re too
tired to go home and write great literature. After a day of five
classes, your head is filled with the noise of the classroom.
In 'Tis I wrote about my life in America and how I became a
teacher. After it came out, I felt guilty that I hadn’t talked enough

1
about teaching. In America, doctors, lawyers, army officers, actors,
television people, and politicians are admired and rewarded. Not
teachers. Teachers are spoken to politely but they aren’t respected;
they’re congratulated on having such long vacations. When
teachers stop working, they disappear into the shadows, hoping
that one child will remember them. Keep dreaming, teacher. You
won’t be celebrated.
♦
You imagine a future filled with success. Your lessons will be
perfect; your students will be pleasantly surprised. Principals and
other important people will hear the sounds of excitement from
your room. You’ll win prizes: Teacher of the Year, Teacher of the
Century. You’ll be invited to Washington. President Eisenhower
will shake your hand. Newspapers will ask you, an ordinary
teacher, for your opinion on education. This will be big news: a
teacher is asked for his opinion. Wow! You’ll be on television.
Television.
Imagine: A teacher on television.
They’ll fly you to Hollywood, where you’ll star in movies
about your own life. But this won’t be the end of the story. After
evenings in the company of the most beautiful female movie stars,
you’ll discover the emptiness of their lives. You’ll listen guiltily
as they tell you how much they admire you. You’ve become a
Hollywood star because of your caring attitude toward your
students. And they, the beautiful movie stars, are ashamed of the
uselessness of their Hollywood lives. If they left Hollywood, they,
too, could enjoy the rewarding pleasures of teaching the future
dock workers, typists, and store assistants of America. It must feel
wonderful, they say, to work every day with the young people
of America. Your low pay is unimportant. Your real reward is the
light in your students’ eyes as they bring you gifts from their
grateful and admiring parents: cookies, bread, and home-made

2
wine from the mothers and fathers of your one hundred and
seventy students of McKee Vocational High School, Staten Island,
in the City of New York.

C hapter 2 A Sandw ich S itu ation

It is March 1958. I sit at my desk in an empty classroom in
McKee High School. In a minute the bell will ring, and the
students will rush in. What will they say if they see me at the
desk? “Hey, look. Hes hiding.” They know everything about
teachers. You sit at the desk because you’re scared or lazy. You’re
using the desk as a wall. You should get out there and stand. Be a
man. If you make one mistake on your first day, your students will
remember it for months.
The kids are sixteen years old. They’ve been in school for
eleven years. So, teachers come, teachers go. But kids watch, study,
judge. They know body language, voice, general attitude, and
appearance. They don’t discuss these things with each other. After
eleven years, they just know, and they pass the information on to
the next group.
It’s a mistake to arrive early. It gives you too much time to
think about what’s going to happen. Where did I get the idea that
I was brave enough to face American teenagers? Stupidity. These
are .the 1950s and newspapers report the unhappiness of young
Americans. They have no hope. Life is meaningless. All adults are
dishonest. W hat’s the purpose of life?
They’re so unhappy that they join gangs and fight other gangs.
If one of them dies, there’s great public anger, and schools and
teachers are blamed for not doing their jobs.
♦
Vocational schools were seen as places for students who were

3
 not smart enough for other high schools. They weren’t respected.
It didn’t matter to the public that thousands of young people
wanted to be mechanics, machine operators, or electricians. Those
young people didn’t want to learn about history, art, or literature.
But kids thought, “If we have to sit in these boring classes, we’ll
do it. We’ll try to be nice to the teachers for four years, and then
we’ll be free.”
Here they are. The door hits the wall with a loud noise. Why
can’t they just walk into the room, say, “Good morning,” and
sit? Oh, no. They have to shout and push. One says, “Hey,” in a
playfully violent way, and another one says, “Hey,” in reply. They
insult each other, ignore the late bell, and are in no hurry to sit
down. Look, there’s a new teacher up there and new teachers
don’t know anything. So? Bell? Teacher? New guy. Who is he?
Who cares?
They talk to friends across the room, sit lazily in desks that are
too small for them, stretch out their legs, laugh if someone falls
over them. They stare out the window or over my head at the
American flag. They cut their names on desk tops with small
knives next to where their fathers cut their names long ago.
Couples sit together, hold hands, whisper, and look lovingly into
each other’s eyes. Three boys at the back tilt their chairs against
the closets and sing pop songs, telling the world that they’re just
teenagers in love.
Five times a day they push into the room. Five classes, thirty
to thirty-five in each class. Teenagers? In Ireland we saw them in
American movies— angry-looking, never smiling, driving around
in cars—and we wondered why they were angry and unsmiling.
They had food and clothes and money, and they were still mean
to their parents. There were no teenagers in Ireland, not in my
world. You were a child. You went to school until you were
fourteen. If you weren’t polite to your parents, they hit you across
the face with a belt. You grew up, got a boring job, got married,

4
drank your beer on a Friday night, and kept your wife busy with
babies. In a few years you went to England to work as a builder
or to join the army
♦
The problem of the sandwich started when a boy named Petey
asked the class, “Does anyone want a sandwich?”
“Are you joking?” laughed a boy named Andy “Your mother
must hate you, giving you cold-meat sandwiches like that.”
Petey threw his brown-paper sandwich bag at Andy, and the
class cheered excitedly The bag landed on the floor between the
blackboard and Andy’s desk.
I came from behind my desk and made the first sound of my
teaching career: “Hey.”
They ignored me. I moved toward Petey and made my first
teacher statement: “Stop throwing sandwiches.”
Petey and the class looked shocked. This teacher, this new
teacher, just stopped a good fight. New teachers should look the
other way or send for the principal.
Benny called out from the back of the room. “Hey, teacher man,
he already threw the sandwich.”
The class laughed. One boy covered his mouth and said,
“Stupid,” and I knew he was talking about me. I wanted to knock
him out of his seat, but that would be the end of my teaching
career. Also, he was enormous.
The class waited. What would this new teacher do?
Professors of education at New York University never taught
you how to manage flying-sandwich situations. Should I say, “Hey,
Petey, come here and pick up that sandwich?” Should I pick it
up myself and throw it into the wastepaper basket? They had to
recognize I was boss. I was strong. I wasn’t going to accept this
kind of behavior.
I picked up the sandwich, took it out of its bag, and ate it. It

5
 was my first act of classroom management. Thirty-four boys and
girls stared at me in shocked silence. I could see the admiration in
their eyes. They’d never seen a teacher pick up a sandwich from
the floor and eat it in front of the class before. Sandwich man.
When I’d finished, I made a ball of the paper bag and threw
it into the wastepaper basket. The class cheered. “Wow,” they
said. “Did you see that? He eats the sandwich. He hits the basket.
Wow.”
I felt in total control of the classroom. I could do nothing
wrong. Fine, except I didn’t know what to do next. I was there
to teach English, and wondered how to move from a sandwich
situation to spelling or grammar.
My students smiled until they saw the principal’s face in the
door window. He opened the door and said, “A word, Mr.
McCourt?”
Petey whispered, “Hey, mister. Don’t worry about the
sandwich.”
The class said, “Yeah, yeah,” to show me that they were on my
side if I had trouble with the principal.
Outside the classroom, he said, “I’m sure you understand, Mr.
McCourt, that teachers shouldn’t eat their lunch at nine o’clock
in the morning in their classrooms in front of these boys and
girls. It gives children the wrong idea. What would happen if all
the teachers began to eat their lunches in class, especially in the
morning? We have enough trouble trying to stop the kids eating
in class.”
I wanted to tell him the truth about the sandwich and how
well I’d managed the situation. I wanted to say that it wasn’t my
sandwich. But if I did, it might be the end of my teaching career.
So I said nothing.
The principal said he was there to help me because, ha, ha, I
seemed to need help. “I agree you had their full attention,” he
said. “But can you do it in a different way? Try teaching. That’s

6
why you’re here, young man. Teaching. Now that’s all. Remember,
no eating in class for teacher or students.”
I said, “Yes, sir,” and he waved me back to the classroom.
The class said, “What did he say?”
“He said I shouldn’t eat my lunch in the classroom at nine
o’clock in the morning.”
“That’s unfair.You weren’t eating lunch.”
Petey said,“I’ll tell my mom you liked her sandwich.”
“All right, Petey, but don’t tell her you threw it away.”
“No, no. She’d kill me. She’s from Sicily. They get excited over
there in Sicily.”
“Tell her it was the most delicious sandwich I ever had in my
life.”
“OK.”

C hapter 3 A P roblem w ith Sheep

It was my fault. Instead of teaching, I told stories because stories
kept the kids quiet and in their seats. In the teachers’ cafeteria the
more experienced teachers warned me, “Son, tell them nothing
about yourself. They’re kids, remember.You’re the teacher. Don’t tell
them about your private life. They’re not your natural friends. They
can smell it when you’re going to teach a real lesson on grammar.
They’ll know if you’re even thinking about grammar or spelling.
They’ll put up their hands and ask you about your childhood and
your hobbies. If you’re not careful, you’ll answer all their questions.
They’ll go home without knowing anything about grammar but
knowing everything about your life. They’ll carry bits and pieces
of your private life in their heads forever, and you’ll never get them
back.Your life, man. It’s all you have. Tell them nothing.”
The advice was wasted. I had to learn about these things in my
own way.

7
 ♦
On my second day at McKee a boy asks a question that sends me
into the past. It affects the way that I teach for the next thirty years.
Joey Santos calls out,“Hey, teacher man ...”
“Call me Mr. McCourt.”
“Yeah. OK. So, are you Scottish or something?”
“No. I’m not Scottish. I’m Irish.”
Joey looks interested. “Oh, yeah? W hat’s Irish?”
I talk about Ireland for a short time, but there are other
questions. Don’t let them control the classroom. Be strong. Show
them who’s boss. Tell them, “Open your notebooks. Time for the
spelling list.”
“Oh, teacher, oh man. Spelling? Do we have to? B-o-r-i-n-g
spelling list.” They pretend to hit their heads on desks, hide their
faces in their arms. They beg to go to the bathroom. “We thought
you were a nice guy. Why do all these English teachers have to do
the same old thing? Same old spelling lessons, same old vocabulary
lessons, same old garbage. Can’t you tell us more about Ireland?”
“Hey, teacher man.” Joey again.
“Joey, I told you my name is Mr. McCourt.”
“Yeah, yeah. So, mister, did you go out with girls inIreland?”
“No! We went out with sheep. What do you think we went out
with?”
There’s an explosion of laughing. “This teacher. Crazy. Talks
funny. Goes out with sheep. Lock up your sheep.”
“Excuse me. Open your notebooks, please. We have a spelling
list to do.”
More laughing. “Will sheep be on the list?”
I thought my answer had been smart, but it was a mistake.
There’ll be trouble. Some students will certainly report me. “Oh,
Mom, oh, Dad, oh, Mr. Principal, guess what teacher said in class
today. Bad things about sheep.”

8
 I’m not ready for this. Its not teaching. When will I be tough
enough to walk into the room, get their immediate attention, and
teach? Around this school there are quiet, serious classes where
teachers are in control. 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,
smoking a cigarette, repeating into the telephone, “I’m sorry. It
won’t happen again. New teacher, I’m afraid. I’ll speak to him.”
He puts the phone down. “Sheep. W hat’s this about sheep?”
“Sheep?”
“I don’t know what to do with you.There are complaints about
you. First the sandwich, now the sheep. My phone doesn’t stop
ringing. Parents are really angry. You’ve been in the building for
two days, and for two days you’ve been in trouble. How do you
do it? Why did you have to tell these kids about the sheep?”
“I’m sorry. They kept asking me questions, and I was angry.
They were only trying to keep me away from the spelling list. I
thought the sheep thing was funny at the time.”
“Thirteen parents want me to fire you.”
“I was only joking.”
“No, young man. No jokes here. You’re the teacher. When you
say something to the kids, they believe every word.”
“I’m sorry.”
“This time I’ll forget it. I’ll tell the parents you’ve just got off
the boat from Ireland and don’t understand American ways.”
“But I was born here.”
“Could you be quiet for one minute and listen while I save
your life? This time you won’t be punished. If you want to go up
in this system—principal, assistant principal, guidance counselor—
you have to be more careful.”
“Sir, I don’t want to be principal. I just want to teach.”
“Yeah, yeah, they all say that.You’ll soon understand. These kids
will give you gray hair before you’re thirty.”

9
 ♦
It was clear that I had different ideas about teaching. I didn’t like
classes where the lesson was king and the students were nothing.
That reminded me of my school in Ireland.
Why couldn’t the principal invite me to do what I wanted with
the class? Then I could tell the students to lie on the floor and go
to sleep.
“What?”
“I said,‘Go to sleep.’”
“Why?”
“Think about it while you’re lying on the floor.”
They’d lie on the floor. I’d ask a girl to sing a gentle song.
Everything would get quiet. The bell would ring, and they’d be
slow off the floor. They’d leave the room, relaxed and puzzled.
Please don’t ask me why I’d do that with them. I just would.

C hapter 4 Stories
“So, teacher, how did you come to America?”
I tell them about my return to America when I was nineteen.
I had no idea I’d ever become a teacher. I never dreamed I
could climb so high in the world. Except for one new book in
my suitcase, everything about me was old and had been used
before. Everything in my head was old, too. Parents, teachers,
and churchmen had filled it with religion and Ireland’s long sad
history of pain and suffering. I told them about my first years in
New York, working in low-paid jobs. Then my two years in the
army. After that I went to college to become a teacher.
“So, Mr. McCourt, what was it like growing up in Ireland?”
I’m twenty-seven years old, satisfying these American teenagers
with journeys into my past. I never thought my past would be

10
 useful. Why would anybody want to know about my miserable
life? Then I realize my father did the same thing when he told
us stories by the fire. I have arguments with myself. I’m telling
stories but I should be teaching.
I am teaching. Storytelling is teaching.
Storytelling is a waste of time.
What can I do? I can’t teach any other way.
You’re dishonest.You’re cheating our children.
They don’t seem to think so.
I’m a teacher in an American school telling stories of my
childhood in Ireland. They learn about my three brothers. My
father, who was always drunk, left us when I was ten years old.
A baby sister died; twin boys died. My mother begged for food
and clothes, but she refused to let anyone take us away from her.
A rich lady once offered to buy her baby, my brother Malachy,
but she said no. Years later, I told her she was wrong not to sell
Malachy. Without Malachy, I said, there’d be more food for the
rest of us. My mother replied, “Well, I offered her you, but she
wasn’t interested.”
Girls in the class say, “Oh, Mr. McCourt, that was wrong of your
mother. People shouldn’t offer to sell their children. You’re not so
ugly.”
Boys in the class say, “Well, he’s not very handsome, either. Only
joking, Mr. McCourt.You got any more stories?”
“No, no more stories. This is an English class. Parents are
complaining.”
“Oh, Mr. McCourt, tell us how you became a teacher.”
I tell them about my four years at New York University. I
worked nights to help pay for my course. I was always tired. I
fell asleep in libraries. The Professor of Education warned us
about the difficult days ahead. I learned that teaching could be
complicated. I learned about lesson plans and different methods of
teaching. I had a bitter experience with love. I liked my girlfriend,

11
June, very much, but I left her because she had lots of other
boyfriends. I could never understand why she behaved like that.
In the end, I managed to get my teachers license.
“Hey, Mr. McCourt, did you ever do real work? Not teaching,
but, you know, real work?”
“Are you joking? Teaching is harder than working on the docks.
How many of you have relatives working along the waterfront?”
Half the class—mostly Italian, a few Irish.
Before I came to this school I worked on the Manhattan,
Hoboken, and Brooklyn docks because it was difficult for me to
find a teaching job. Schools told me, “Sorry, your accent’s going
to be a problem. What will parents say when their kids come
home from school with Irish accents?” Work on the docks was
easier. While you were working with your body, your brain had a
vacation. But it was often rough. There were fights and I learned
to be brave.
When I tell stories about the docks, the kids look at me in a
different way. One boy says its strange to have a teacher who
worked like a normal person. The boy says he used to think he
wanted to work on the docks because the money was good. You
could steal things easily. But his father was angry with him, and
you don’t argue with your father in an Italian family. His father
said, “If this Irishman can become a teacher, you can, too. Forget
the docks. You might make money but what good is that when
you can’t straighten your back?”

C hapter 5 O pen D ay
Twice a year at McKee we had Open School Day and Open
School Night, when parents visited the school to see how their
children were progressing. Teachers sat in classrooms talking to
parents or listening to their complaints. Most visiting parents were

12
mothers because that was the job of the woman, but sometimes a
whole family might come to visit the teacher, and the room was
crowded with fathers, mothers, and small children. The women
talked to each other in a friendly way, but the men sat quietly at
the desks.
My first time at McKee, I had a student monitor, Norma, who
organized the parents waiting to see me.
First, I had to get past the subject of my accent, especially with
the women. When I opened my mouth, they said, “Oh, my God,
what a nice accent.” Then they told me about their grandparents,
who’d also come from Ireland. They wanted to know everything
about me. They said it was wonderful I was a teacher because
most Irish people became policemen or worked in churches.
Finally, they asked how their little Harry was doing.
I had to be careful if the dad was sitting there. If I criticized
Harry, the dad might go home and hit him. If other students
heard about it, they’d learn not to trust me. I was learning that
teachers and kids have to help each other in front of parents,
principals, and the world in general.
I said positive things about all my students. They paid attention,
they were never late, they were enthusiastic, they all had a bright
future, and the parents should be pleased. Dad and Mom looked
at each other with a proud smile. Or they were puzzled and said,
“Are you sure you’re talking about our kid? Our Harry?”
“Oh, yes. Harry.”
“Does he behave himself in class? Is he polite?”
“Oh, yes. He always has something to say in our discussions.”
“Oh, yeah? That’s not the Harry we know. He must be different
in school because at home he’s an unpleasant little animal. He
doesn’t say a word at home. Never does anything. He just listens
to pop music all day.” The dad hated pop music. Elvis Presley was
the worst thing that America ever produced. He wanted to throw
the record player in the trash.

13
 Other parents became impatient and asked if we could stop
talking about Elvis Presley. Harry’s parents told them to stop
complaining and wait. It was a free country, and nobody was
going to interrupt their interview with this nice teacher from
Ireland.
But the other parents said, “Hurry up. We haven’t got all night.
We’re working people, too.”
I didn’t know what to do. I said thank you to the parents,
hoping they would leave. But the dad said angrily, “Hey, we’re not
finished yet.”
Norma, my student monitor, understood my problem and took
control of the situation. She calmly passed around a sheet of paper
for the parents’ names and phone numbers. “Mr. McCourt will
contact you,” she said.
The parents stopped complaining and congratulated Norma on
her intelligence. “You should be a teacher yourself,” they said. She
told them she had no interest in being a teacher. She wanted to
work for a travel company and get free tickets everywhere. One
mother said, “Oh, you don’t want to stay at home with a family
and kids? You’d be a great mother.”
Then Norma said the wrong thing. “No,” she said, “I don’t want
kids. Kids are terrible. You have to wash them and feed them and
then come to school to see how they’re doing and you’re never
free.”
A few minutes ago parents were congratulating her on her
intelligence. Now they felt insulted by her opinions on parents
and kids. One father angrily destroyed the sheet of paper with
the names and phone numbers. He threw it toward the front of
the room where I sat. He picked up his coat and told his wife,
“Let’s get out of here. This place is a madhouse.” His wife shouted
at me, “Don’t you have any control over these kids? If this one
was my daughter, I’d beat her. She shouldn’t insult the mothers of
America like that.”

14
 My face burned with embarrassment. I wanted to apologize to
the parents in the room and the mothers of America. I wanted to
tell Norma, “Go away. You’ve ruined my first Open School Day.”
She stood by the door calmly saying goodnight to the parents,
pretending not to notice their angry stares. Now what should I
do? Where was the book by a professor of education that could
help? Fifteen parents still sat in the room waiting to hear about
their sons and daughters. What should I say to them?
Norma spoke again and my heart began to sink. “Ladies and
gentlemen, I. did a stupid thing and I’m so sorry. It wasn’t Mr.
M cCourt’s fault. He’s a good teacher. He’s new, you know, just
here a few months, so he’s just a learning teacher I was wrong to
say those things because I got him into trouble and I’m sorry.”
Then she began to cry and a number of mothers rushed toward
her while I sat at my desk. It was Norma’s job to call the parents
up, one by one, but she was surrounded by a group of mothers.
I didn’t know what to do. Should I act independently and say,
“Next?” The parents seemed more interested in Norma than in
the future of their children. When the end-of-meeting bell rang,
they smiled and left, saying this visit with me had been nice, and
good luck in my teaching career.
♦
Maybe Paulie s mother was right. On my second Open School
Day she told me I was a cheat. She was proud of her Paulie, future
electrician, nice kid who planned to start his own business one
day. He wanted to marry a nice girl, have a family, and stay out of
trouble.
I was angry with her. But, at the back of my head a little voice
filled me with doubt. Maybe I was a cheat. Maybe I wasn’t a good
teacher.
“I ask my kid about his day in school, and he tells me about
stories of Ireland and you coming to New York. Stories, stories,

15
 stories. You know what you are? A cheat. And I’m saying that
kindly, trying to help.”
I wanted to be a good teacher. I wanted to fill my students’
heads with spelling and vocabulary. I wanted to help them have a
better life, but I didn’t know how.
The mother said she was Irish, married to an Italian, and could
see all my secrets. She knew my game. When I told her I agreed
with her she said, “Ooh, you agree with me? You actually know
you’re a cheat?”
“I’m just trying to do my best. They ask me questions about
my life and I answer them. They don’t listen when I try to
teach English. They look out the window. They sleep. They eat
sandwiches. They want the bathroom.”
“Why don’t you teach them what they need to learn—spelling
and big words? What will my son, Paulie, do when he goes out
into the big world and he can’t use big words?”
I told Paulies mother that I hoped to be a good teacher one
day, confident in the classroom. But until then, I was going to
continue trying. I don’t know why, but that made her emotional.
She started crying and looked in her handbag for a handkerchief.
I offered her mine, but she shook her head and asked, “Who
does your washing? That’s the saddest-looking gray handkerchief
I’ve ever seen in my life. Your shoes, too. I’ve never seen such sad
shoes. No woman would ever let you buy shoes like them. It’s
easy to see you’ve never been married.”
She brushed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Do you think my Paulie can spell handkerchief?”
“I don’t think so. It’s not on the list.”
“Do you see what I mean? You people have no idea. You don’t
have handkerchief on the list, but he’ll need handkerchiefs all his
life. Every day Paulie comes home telling us these stories and we
don’t need to hear them. We’ve got our own troubles. It’s easy to
see that you’re new in this country ...”

16
 “No, I’m not new in this country. I was born here. I was in the
army here. I worked on the docks. I graduated from New York
University.”
“See?” she said. “That’s what I mean. I ask you a simple question
and you give me the story of your life. Be careful, Mr. McCurd.
These kids don’t need to know the life story of every teacher
in the school. Just give them spelling and words, Mr. McCurd,
and the parents of this school will thank you forever. Forget the
storytelling. If we want stories, we’ve got a T V Guide at home.”

C hapter 6 G ram m ar and G ibberish

I thought about what Paulies mother said and realized it was
time to take control. Organization is everything. I wanted to start
again, make plans for every lesson. I was the captain of this ship,
and I was going to choose its direction.
“No more stories,” I told my students. “Your English teacher
is going to teach English and won’t be stopped by little teenage
tricks. Take out your notebooks. That’s right, your notebooks.”
I wrote on the board, “John went to the store.”
There was a storm of complaints. “What’s he doing to us? English
teachers are all the same. Old John goes to the store again.”
“All right. What’s the subject of this sentence? Yes, Mario?”
“That’s easy. It’s all about a guy who wants to go to the store.”
“Yes, yes, that’s what the sentence is about. But what’s the
subject? It’s one word.Yes, Donna.”
“I think Mario is right. It’s all about ...”
“No, Donna.The subject here is one word.”
“What do you mean?”
“W hat’s the problem? Aren’t you studying Spanish? Don’t you
have grammar in Spanish? Doesn’t Miss Grober tell you the parts
of a sentence?”

17
 “Yeah, but she’s not always bothering us about John going to
the store.”
My head felt hot and I wanted to shout, “Why are you so
stupid? Why do I have to waste my time with you when outside
spring birds are singing in the morning sun? Why do I have
to look at your silly, bad-tempered faces? You’re not hungry.
You’re well-clothed and warm. You’re getting a free high school
education and you’re not even slightly grateful. Learn the parts
of a sentence. Am I asking too much? Why can’t you just look
at this sentence and, for the first time in your miserable teenage
existence, try to learn?”
But they were smart. They had a mysterious way of
knowing that “John went to the store” was the limit of my
grammatical knowledge. I gave them a serious look and sat at my
desk. Enough. I couldn’t continue pretending to be a grammar
teacher.
I said, “Why did John go to the store?”
They looked surprised. “Hey, man, what’s this? This isn’t
grammar.”
“I’m asking you a simple grammar question. Why did John go
to the store? Can’t you guess?”
A hand went up. “Yes, Ron?”
“I think John went to the store to get a book on English grammar.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted Mr. McCourt to think he was smart.”
“And why did he want Mr. McCourt to think that?”
“Because John has a girlfriend called Rose, and she’s a good
girl and she understands grammar. She’s going to graduate and
become a secretary in a big company in Manhattan. John doesn’t
want to look stupid in front of her because he wants to marry
her. That’s why he goes to the store. He’s going to be a good
boy and study his book. When he doesn’t understand something,
he’ll ask Mr. McCourt because Mr. McCourt knows everything.

18
 When John marries Rose, he’s going to invite Mr. McCourt to
the wedding.”
“Thank you, Ron.”
There was an explosion of cheering in the class, but Ron hadn’t
finished. His hand went up again.
“Yes, Ron?”
“When John got to the store, he didn’t have any money so he
had to steal the grammar book. When he tried to walk out of the
store, the police were called and now he’s in Sing Sing prison and
poor Rose is crying.”
“Poor Rose,” the class said sadly. The boys wanted to know where
she lived. Girls dried their eyes. But Kenny Ball, the class tough guy,
said that the story was just a lot of trash. He said, “Teacher writes a
sentence on the board, and suddenly a guy steals a book and goes
to Sing Sing. It’s all trash and this isn’t a real English class.”
Ron said, “So can you do better?”
“All these stories don’t mean anything. They won’t help us get
a job.”
The bell rang and they left.
The next day, Ron put up his hand again. “Hey, teacher, what
would happen if you played around with those words?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you wrote,‘To the store John went.’ How about that?”
“Same thing. John’s still the subject of the sentence.”
“OK. What about ‘Went John to the store?”’
“Same thing. It still has a meaning. But you could make it
meaningless. If you said to someone, ‘J ohn store to the went,’
they’d think it was gibberish.”
“What’s gibberish?”
“Language without any meaning.”
I had a sudden idea. I said, “Psychology is the study of the
way people behave. Grammar is the study of the way language
behaves.” Go on, teacher man. Write the word on the board. They

19
like big words. They take them home and frighten their families
with them.
“ Psychology .Who knows it?”
“Its when you study crazy people before you put them in a
madhouse.”
The class laughed. “Yeah. Like this school, man.”
I said, “If someone acts crazy, the psychologist studies them to
discover what’s wrong. If someone talks in a funny way and you
can’t understand them, then you’re thinking about grammar. Like,
‘J ohn store to the went.’”
“So it’s gibberish, right?” I continued.
They liked that word and they wrote it in their notebooks. And
I felt proud. They said it to each other and laughed. After teaching
for four years, I’d managed to teach them one new word. In ten
years’ time, they’d hear gibberish and think of me. Something was
happening. They were beginning to understand what grammar
was. If I continued like this, I might understand it myself.

C hapter 7 E xcuse N otes

Mikey Dolan gave me a note from his mother explaining his
absence the day before:
Dear Mr. McCort, M ikey’s grandmother fell down the stairs from too
much coffee, and I kept Mikey at home to take care of her and his baby
sister. Please excuse Mikey and he’ll do his best in the future because he
likes your class.

The note had clearly been forged by Mikey, but I said nothing.
It was not the first dishonest note I’d received from him. It
wouldn’t be the last. Most of the excuse notes in my desk drawer
were written by the boys and girls of McKee Vocational High

20
School. If I said anything, it would hurt their feelings and destroy
the relationship between teacher and students. Forged excuse
notes are just a part of school life. Everyone knows they’re fiction,
so what’s the problem?
I threw Mikey’s note into a desk drawer with all the others.
While my class was taking a test one day, I read all the notes
carefully. I made two piles, one for the real notes, the other for
the forged ones. The second pile was larger.
“Isn’t it strange,” I thought, “how they never like writing in
class or for homework? But when they forge these excuse notes,
they’re wonderful. I have a drawer full of excuse notes that would
make an excellent book: Great American Excuses.”
Why hadn’t I noticed this drawer full of great writing before—
this palace of literature, these jewels of fiction, imagination, and
self-pity, with details of family problems, kitchen explosions, falling
ceilings, sudden deaths, unexpected births, illnesses, robberies, and
badly-behaved babies? Here was American high school writing at
its best—real, urgent, clear, short, fiction:
The oven caught fire and the fire department kept us out of the house
all night.
The toilet was broken so we had to use the toilet in Kilkenny Bar; but
that was broken too.
The train door shut on Arnold's homework bag and took it away.
His sister's dog ate the homework and I hope it kills him.
A man died in the bathroom upstairs and the water from the bath came
through the ceiling and fell onto Roberta's homework.
Her big brother got mad with her and threw her homework out the
window.

21
 I imagined the writers of excuse notes on buses and trains,
in coffee shops and on park seats, trying to discover new and
believable excuses, trying to write in their parents’ style.
They didn’t know that honest excuse notes from parents were
usually boring.
I typed several of the excuse notes and gave copies to my
students. They read silently.
“Hey, Mr. McCourt, what’s this?”
“Excuse notes.”
“What do you mean? Who wrote them?”
“You did, or some of you did. They’re not really from your
parents, are they, Mikey?”
“So, what do you want us to do with these excuse notes?”
“Read them to the class. This is the first class in the world to
study the art of the excuse note and to practice writing them.”
They were smiling. They understood.
“Some of the notes on that sheet were written by people in this
class. You know who you are. You used your imagination. You’ll
need excuses in the future, in the world outside, so you need
to make them believable. Try it now. Imagine you have a fifteen-
year-old son or daughter who needs an excuse for not doing
homework.”
They didn’t look around. They didn’t eat their pens or look
bored. They were enthusiastic about writing excuses for their
future sons and daughters. It was an act of loyalty and love.
They produced lots of excuses, from food poisoning blamed on
the McKee High School cafeteria to a heavy truck crashing into
their house.
They said, “More, more. Could we do more?”
I was surprised. I went to the board and wrote: “For Homework
Tonight.”
That was a mistake. The class complained. They didn’t like the
word homework. I crossed it out and wrote the titles: “An Excuse

22
 Note from Adam to God” or “An Excuse Note from Eve to
G od”“You can start it now,” I said.
Heads went down. Pens raced across paper. Secret smiles around
the room. “Oh, this is good,” they think, and we know what’s
coming, don’t we? Adam blames Eve. Eve blames Adam. They
both blame God, who throws them out of theGarden of Eden.
So Adam and Eve and their children’s children goto McKee
Vocational High School and practice writing excuse notes for the
first man and woman. And maybe God Himself needs an excuse
note for some of His big mistakes.
The bell rang. For the first time in my four years of teaching, I
saw high school students unwilling to leave the classroom.
The next day, everyone had excuse notes from Adam and Eve.
Lisa Quinn defended Eve. Eve gave Adam the apple from the Tree
of Knowledge because she was bored with life in the Garden of
Eden. She was also tired of God watching them all the time. They
had no private places. God was lucky. He could hide behind a
cloud if He wanted to be private.
There were enthusiastic discussions although no one said
anything really bad about God. Maybe, though, He punished the
First Man or First Woman a bit too hard.
“Mr. McCourt, the principal is at the door.”
My heart sank.
The principal came into the room with the Staten Island Chief
Inspector of Schools, Mr. Martin Wolfson. They didn’t look at
me. They didn’t apologize for interrupting my class. They walked
up and down, looking at student papers. They picked them up
and examined them carefully. The inspector showed one to the
principal. The principal looked serious. The class understood that
these were important people. They stayed loyal to me and no one
asked for the bathroom.
On their way out the principal whispered that the inspector
would like to see me after the class. I know. I know. I’ve done

23
 something wrong again. You do your best. You get your class
interested in writing. You do something that’s never been done
before in the history of the world. But now it’s judgment time. I
went to the principal’s office.
He was sitting at his desk. The inspector was standing in the
middle of the room.
“Come in. Come in. Only a minute. I want to tell you that
your lesson was of the highest quality. That, young man, is what
we need. Good quality teaching. Those kids were writing on a
college level. Those excuse notes from Adam and Eve were
excellent. There are some good future lawyers in that class. So, I
just want to shake your hand and congratulate you. There will be
a good report about you. Thank you.”
Shall I dance back to the classroom or shall I fly? Will the world
complain if I sing?
I sang. The next day I taught my class a silly song with difficult
pronunciation. They laughed as they tried to get their tongues
around the words. And wasn’t it great to see the teacher singing?
School should be like this every day.

C hapter 8 K evin
Teachers refuse to have Kevin Dunne in their classes. The kid’s a
real troublemaker, out of control. If the principal tries to put him
in their classes, they’ll leave the school. That kid belongs in a zoo,
not a school.
So they send him to the new teacher, the one who can’t say
no: me. Also, you can see with that red hair and his name that the
kid’s Irish. An Irish teacher with the same accent will be able to
manage the little animal. A real Irish teacher can probably touch
something deep inside him. The guidance counselor says that
Kevin’s almost nineteen and has had to repeat two years. But he

24
 should graduate this year. The school’s hoping that he’ll leave the
school, join the army or something. The army accepts all kinds
of people, even the Kevins of this world. He’ll never reach my
classroom alone, so would I please collect him from the office?
He sits in an office corner, wearing a coat too big for him and a
dark hat. The guidance counselor says, “Here’s your new teacher,
Kevin. Lift your head so he can see you.”
Kevin doesn’t move.
“Lift your head, Kevin.”
Kevin shakes his head.
“OK. Go with Mr. McCourt and try to behave.”
In class, he sits at his desk drumming with his fingers, hiding
inside his coat. The principal comes in and tells him, “Son, take
off that hat.” Kevin pays no attention. The principal turns to me.
“Are we having a problem here?”
“That’s Kevin Dunne.”
“Oh,” and he leaves the classroom.
I feel imprisoned in some kind of mystery. When I talk about
him to other teachers, they tell me impossible students are always
given to the new teachers. The guidance counselor tells me,
“Don’t worry about it. Kevin’s trouble, but there’s something
wrong with his brain. He won’t be here long. Just be patient.”
The next day, just before noon, he asks to go to the bathroom.
He says, “Why do you let me go so easily? You don’t want me
here, do you?”
“You wanted my permission. I’m giving it. Go.”
“Why are you telling me to go?”
“Because you want to.”
“That’s not fair. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
I want to explain things to him quiedy, but I’m not good at that. It’s
easier to talk to the whole class than to one boy. It isn’t so personal.
He says strange things in the middle of class: “English has more
dirty words than any other language”; “If you wear your right shoe

25
 on your left foot and your left shoe on your right foot, your brain
will be more powerful and all your children will be twins”; “God has
a pen that never needs ink”; “Babies know everything when they’re
born.That’s why they can’t talk. If they did, we’d all be stupid.” “Beans
make you smell. If you feed your children beans, police dogs can find
them when they get lost or kidnapped. That’s why rich families feed
their children a lot of beans.” When he left school, he was going
to teach dogs how to find rich bean-eating kids. He’d be rich and
famous, and could he now go to the bathroom?
His mother visits on Open School Day. She can do nothing
with him, doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. His father ran
off when Kevin was four and now lives in Pennsylvania with a
woman who sells white mice to scientists. Kevin loves the white
mice but hates his father’s new wife for selling them to people
who cut them open. When he was ten, he attacked the woman
and the police were called. Now his mother wonders how he’s
doing in my class. Is he learning anything?
I tell her he’s a smart boy with a good imagination. She says,
“Yeah, that’s fine for you. But what about his future?” She’s worried
he’ll join the army and be sent to Vietnam. I tell her I don’t think
they’ll take him in the army and she looks offended. She says,
“What do you mean? He’s as good as any kid in this school.”
“I mean I don’t think he’d like the army.”
“My Kevin can do anything.”
His mother loves him, other teachers refuse to have him, and
I don’t know what to do with him. I try to talk to him, but he
pretends not to hear me. I send him to the guidance counselor,
who returns him with a note. The counselor advises me to keep
him busy. Make him wash the blackboards.
I tell Kevin I’m making him classroom manager in charge of
everything. He finishes his jobs quickly to show the class how fast
he is. In the closet he finds hundreds of dirty, dry little paint jars.
He says, “Oh, man. Jars, jars. Colors, colors. Mine, mine.”

26
 “OK, Kevin. Would you like to clean them? You can stay here at
this special table and you don’t have to sit at your desk.”
“Yeah, yeah. My jars. My table. I’m going to take off my hat.”
He takes off his hat, and his hair is flame-red. I tell him I’ve
never seen such red hair and he smiles. He works with the jars
for hours, cleaning them and arranging them on shelves. At the
end of the year he still hasn’t finished. I tell him he won’t be able
to stay during the summer and he cries. Could he take the jars
home? His face is wet with tears.
“All right, Kevin. Take them home.”
He touches my shoulder with his paint-covered hand and tells
me I’m the greatest teacher in the world.
He takes home boxes of glass jars.
He doesn’t return in September. He is sent to a special school
for unteachable children. He runs away and lives for a short time
with the white mice in his father’s garage. Then the army takes
him, and his mother comes to the school to tell me he’s missing
in Vietnam. She shows me a picture of his room. On the table the
glass jars are arranged into letters that spell M CCORT OK.
“Look,” his mother says. “He liked you for helping him, but the
Communists got him. So tell me, what’s the purpose in that? Can
you tell me what’s happening over there in a country nobody’s
heard of? Will you tell me that?”
From a bag she pulls a large jar filled with Kevin’s dried paints.
She says, “Look at that. All the colors in the world are in that jar.
And you know what? He cut off all his hair. You can see where
he mixed it in with all those paints. That’s a work of art, isn’t it? I
know he’d want you to have it.”
I keep the jar on my desk, where it shines like a light. When I
look at it, I feel very sorry for letting him leave school and go to
Vietnam.
My students, especially the girls, say the jar is beautiful. A work
of art. I tell them about Kevin and some of the girls cry.

27
 A cleaner thinks the jar is a piece of garbage and takes it away
to the trash can in the yard.
I talk to teachers in the cafeteria about Kevin. They shake their
heads. They say, “That’s terrible. We lose some of the kids, but
what can we do? We have large classes, no time, and we’re not
psychologists.”

C hapter 9 T he C ollege L ecturer

One day, the guidance counselor stopped me outside my classroom.
“W hat’s this about Barbara Sadlar?” he wanted to know.
“What do you mean?”
“She came to my office and said you advised her to go to
college.”
“That’s right.”
“I’d like to remind you that this is a vocational high school.
These kids go into ordinary jobs, son. They’re not ready for
college.”
I told him Barbara Sadlar was one of the smartest students
in my five classes. She wrote well, read books, did well in class
discussions. Yd gone to college and become a teacher without any
high school education. Why couldn’t Barbara? She didn’t have to
be a secretary or hairdresser if she didn’t want to be.
“Because, young man, you’re giving kids ideas they shouldn’t
have. We’re trying to prepare them for life in the real world, and
you’re filling their heads with useless, crazy ideas. I’ll have to talk
to her now. Why don’t you just teach English, and leave guidance
counseling to me?”
He started to walk away but turned back again and said, “Is it
because she’s good-looking?”
I wanted to tell him what I thought of him, but I stayed silent.
A few days later, he left a card for me in my mailbox: “A man

28
should try to carry more than he can hold. But make sure there is
something to hold. Don’t give your students impossible dreams.”
♦
When I was thirty, I married Alberta Small. I also did a one-year
higher degree course at Brooklyn College in English Literature. It
would help me go up in the world and earn more money.
In 1966, after eight years at McKee, it was time to leave. With
my new higher degree, I was going to a college in Brooklyn. A
friend, Professor Herbert Miller, had helped me find a job there
as a lecturer. I would have five or six classes every week, not every
day. I’d earn much less money than a high school teacher, but I’d
have more free time. The students would be older, so they’d listen
and work harder. Also, they’d call me professor, which would make
me feel important. I was going to teach two courses: Introduction
to Literature and General Writing.
My students were adult, mostly under thirty, working around
the city in stores, factories, and offices. There was a class of thirty-
three firefighters, all white, mostly Irish. Almost everyone else
was black or Hispanic. There were no problems with classroom
behavior, so I had to use different teaching methods.
I had to get up there and teach.
♦
Freddie Bell was a well-dressed young black man who worked
in the men’s clothing department at the Abraham and Strauss
Department Store. He liked to write in a colorful style using
big, unusual words from a dictionary. When I wrote on his paper,
“Use simpler language,” he said, “Why should anyone write like a
baby?”
“Because, Freddie, people want to read clear writing, not smart
writing.”
He didn’t agree. His high school English teacher had told him

29
 the English language was like a wonderful, powerful musical
instrument. Play all the notes loudly.
“But, Freddie, your writing is unnatural and false.”
That was the wrong thing to say, especially with thirty other
students watching and listening. His face froze, and I knew I’d lost
him. This upset me, because I knew there would be a bad feeling
in the class.
He hit back at me with language. His writing became more
unnatural and false. His grades fell from A to B-. Finally, he asked
me to explain. He said he’d shown his work to his old English
teacher, who couldn’t understand the fall in grades. Look at the
language. Look at the vocabulary. Look at the levels of meaning.
Look at the complicated sentences.
We stared at each other. He refused to accept my opinion.
He said he worked hard in my class, looking up new words. He
didn’t want to give me the same boring words all the time. His
old teacher had told him that there was nothing worse than pages
of student writing with no new thoughts or fresh vocabulary.
His old teacher thought that I should reward him for trying new
things. He also wanted me to know that he worked hard in the
department store to pay his way through college.
“I don’t see the connection between that and your writing.”
“Also, it’s not easy when you’re black in this society.”
“Oh, Freddie, this society isn’t easy for anybody. All right. If you
want an A, I’ll give you an A.”
“No, I don’t want it just because you’re angry or because I’m
black. I want it because I deserve it.”
I turned to walk away. He called after me, “Hey, Mr. McCourt,
thanks. I like your class. It’s strange, your class, but maybe I’ll
become a teacher like you.”
♦
Students have to produce a research paper for one of my courses.

30
 They have to show the ability to choose a subject, do simple
research, and write cards saying where their material came from.
They also have to make a list of the books that they use.
I take my students to the library, where the friendly librarian
shows them how to find information and use the necessary tools
of research. They listen to her and look at each other and whisper
in Spanish and French. But when she asks if they have any
questions, they stare silently. This embarrasses the librarian, who’s
trying to be helpful.
Later, I try to explain the simple idea of research.
“First, you choose a subject.”
“What’s that?”
“Think of something you’re interested in. Maybe a problem
that’s bothering you and people in general. You could write
about money, religion, children, politics, or education. Some of
you come from Haiti or Cuba— two very interesting subjects.
You could write about the importance of magic in Haiti or the
American attack on Cuba. You could research freedom in your
country, think about the advantages and disadvantages, make a
final decision.”
They don’t know what I’m talking about so I have to explain
it in another way. I ask them their opinions on gun control.
They stare at me with an empty look in their eyes. They don’t
understand. How could they? Nobody ever told them they could
have opinions.
The lesson isn’t a success.
There are ten minutes before the end of the class. I tell the
students to go and look around the library. No one moves. They
don’t even whisper. They sit in their winter coats. They hold book
bags and wait for the end of the class.
After class I tell my friend, Professor Herbert Miller, about my
problem. He says, “They work hard days and nights. They come
to class. They sit and listen. They do their best. The college lets

31
 them in, then expects the teacher to perform magic or be a tough
guy. Research? How can these people do research? They have a
hard time reading a newspaper.”
I am shocked. I didn’t realize the people in my classes thought
their opinions didn’t matter. Whatever ideas they had came from
TV and magazines. No one had ever told them they could think
for themselves.
I tell them, “You have a duty to think for yourselves.”
Silence in the classroom. I say, “You don’t have to believe
everything I tell you. You can ask questions. If I don’t have the
answer, we can find it in the library or discuss it here.”
They look at each other. Yeah. The man’s talking funny. Tells us
we don’t have to believe him. Hey, we came here to learn English.
We’ve got to graduate.
I want to save them. I want to lift them from their knees after
hours of boring work in offices and factories. I want to take
them out of prison, lead them to the mountaintop, teach them to
breathe the air of freedom.
But life is already difficult enough for these people. They don’t
need an English teacher talking about freedom of thought and
bothering them with questions.
“Man, we just want to pass our examinations.”
In the end, the research papers are very bad. Students have
copied straight from books. One, Vivian, has mixed English with
Haitian French and written more than seventeen pages. I give her
paper a B+ for the hard work of reading and copying.
When I return the papers, I try to say positive things about
them. I want the students to think about their subjects even more
deeply.
I am talking to myself. It is the last class of the year, and they are
looking at their watches. I walk to the subway, angry with myself
for not doing better with them. Four women from the class are
waiting for a train. They smile and ask if I live in Manhattan.

32
 “No. Brooklyn.”
I don’t know what to say after that. No friendly conversation
from the professor.
Vivian says, “Thanks for the grade, Mr. McCourt. That’s the
highest I ever got in English. And, you know, you’re a good
teacher.”
The others smile. I know they are just being polite. When the
train comes, they say, “See you,” and hurry away.

C hapter 10 F ashion H igh S ch ool

My college teaching career ended in a year. The college principal
said I needed to take more examinations if I wanted to stay. I told
him I didn’t want to take more examinations.
“Sorry,” said the principal.
My wife said I was going nowhere in life. She said, “We’ve been
married for six years, and you just go from one school to another.
Soon you’ll be forty, and you’ll wonder where your life went.”
I agreed with her, but I couldn’t tell her. I made a speech about
life and America. I told her life was an adventure, and maybe I
was living in the wrong century. Why couldn’t I be alive in the
nineteenth century, when men rode horses across deserts and
protected their families from enemies and wild animals with
guns? I loved that part of American history.
Alberta said, “Go and get a job.”
I replied angrily, “A job is death without self-respect.”
She said, “You’ll have your self-respect, but you won’t have me.”
You could see there was little hope for the future of that
marriage.
♦
The head of the Education Department at Fashion High

33
 School didn’t like me, but he needed a teacher urgently. No one
wanted to teach in vocational high school, and I had eight years’
experience at McKee.
“That’s not a very good school, is it?” he said from behind his
desk.
I needed that job and didn’t want to offend him. I told him I’d
learned a lot about teaching at McKee. He said, “We’ll see.”
It was clear my future was not in this school. I wondered if I
had a future anywhere in the school system. He said four teachers
in his department were doing management courses. One day,
they’d have important jobs in schools around the city.
“We’re not lazy here,” he said. “We move on and up. What are
your plans for the future?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I just came here to be a teacher,” I said.
He shook his head. “Why should you spend all your life in a
classroom with kids? Why don’t you want to move on and up like
those four teachers in my department?”
I suddenly felt brave and asked him, “If everyone moved on and
up, who’d teach the children?”
He ignored me, giving a small smile with a mouth that had no
lips.
♦
“This is the plastic tube that holds the ink,” I said to the class,
holding up a ballpoint pen. “If you took away the tube, what
would happen?”
The students couldn’t believe such a stupid question. “You
wouldn’t be able to write.”
“OK. Now what am I holding in my hand?”
Again the patient look. “That’s a spring.”
“And what happens when we take away the spring?”
“The tube doesn’t write because there’s no spring to push
it out. Then you get into trouble because you can’t write your

34
homework. And the teacher will think you’re crazy if you talk
about missing springs and tubes.”
I wrote on the board: “The spring makes the pen work.”
“What’s the subject of this sentence? In other words, what are
we talking about in this sentence?”
“The pen.”
“No, no, no. There’s an action word here. It’s called a verb. What
is it?”
“Oh, yeah.The spring.”
“No, no, no. The spring is a thing.”
“Yeah, yeah. The spring is a thing. Hey, man. That’s a poem.”
“So, what does the spring do?”
“It makes the pen work.”
“Good. The spring is the subject—it performs the action. We’re
talking about the spring, aren’t we?”
They looked doubtful.
“Would it be right to say, ‘The pen makes the spring work’?”
“No. The spring makes the pen work. Even a fool can see that.”
“So, what is the action word?”
“ M akes .”
“Right. And what word uses the action word?”
“Spring.”
“So you can see how a ballpoint pen is like a sentence. It needs
something to make it work. It needs action, a verb. Can you see
that?”
They said they could. The head of the department, making
notes in the back of the room, looked puzzled. After the class, he
said that the ballpoint pen was a good idea. Maybe the class didn’t
understand the connection between the pen and a sentence,
but I was using my imagination. O f course, some of his more
experienced teachers would do it better, but it was a smart idea.
♦

35
 When I pulled my shoelace one morning and it broke, I used bad
language.
Alberta asked, “What’s the matter?”
“I broke my shoelace.”
“You’re always breaking shoelaces.”
“No, I’m not always breaking shoelaces. I haven’t broken a
shoelace for years.”
“If you didn’t pull them so hard, they wouldn’t break.”
“What are you talking about? The shoelace was two years old. I
pulled on it in the same way that you force cupboard drawers.”
“I don’t force cupboard drawers.”
“Yes, you do. When they don’t open, you get angry.”
“I don’t break them.”
“No, you just pull them so hard that you can’t open them ever
again. Then you have to pay a lot of money to get them fixed.”
“If we didn’t have such cheap furniture, the drawers would be
OK. Oh, why didn’t I listen to my friends? They warned me not
to marry an Irishman.”
I never won arguments with my wife. She always changed the
subject. She always blamed me for being Irish.
I went to school in a terrible temper, in no mood for teaching
or being nice. “Come on, Stan, sit down. Joanna, put your make­
up away, please. Are you listening? Open your copy of Practical
English , page nine. Do the vocabulary questions; then we’ll check
your answers.”
They said, “Yeah, yeah. Keep the teacher happy.” They turned
the pages slowly. Before they reached page nine, they had to
discuss things with their friends in front, behind, beside them.
They talked about last night’s programs on TV and a girl in
another class who was going to have a baby.
“Would you open the magazine to page nine?”
Fifteen minutes later, they still hadn’t found page nine. “Hector,
open the magazine to page nine.”

36
 He had straight black hair and a thin pale face. He ignored me
and stared straight ahead.
“Hector, open the magazine.”
He shook his head.
I walked toward him holding a copy of the magazine. “Hector,
the magazine. Open it.”
He shook his head again. I hit him across the face with the
magazine. There was a red mark below his eye. He jumped up.
“Drop dead,” he said, tears in his voice. He walked toward the
door, and I called after him, “Sit down, Hector,” but he was gone.
I wanted to run after him and apologize, but I let him go. When I
was calmer, I might be able to talk to him.
I dropped the magazine on my desk and sat there for the rest of
the hour, staring ahead like Hector. The class didn’t even pretend
to find page nine. They watched me quietly, or stared out the
window.
Should I talk to them, apologize to them? No, no. Teachers
don’t apologize for their mistakes. Teachers mustn’t be weak. We
waited for the bell. When they were leaving the room, Sofia, from
the seat next to Hector’s, said, “That was wrong. You’re a nice
man, but Hector’s nice, too. He’s got a lot of problems, and now
you’ve made them worse.”
Now the class was going to hate me, especially the Cubans,
Hector’s group. There were thirteen Cubans in the class. They
believed they were better than the other Spanish-speaking
groups. Every Friday they wore white shirts, blue ties and black
pants to show the difference between them and the other groups,
especially the Puerto Ricans.
It was the middle of September. If I didn’t improve my
relationship with the Cubans, they’d make my life miserable until
the end of the year.
At lunch Melvin, a guidance counselor, sat at my table. “Hi.
What happened with you and Hector?”

37
 I told him.
“That’s a pity. I wanted him in your class because he had
questions about the Irish. You’d be able to answer them. He’s also
ashamed of his mother. She used to sell herself to men in Havana.
And he’s got sexual problems himself. He doesn’t know whether
he likes girls or boys. Now he thinks you hate people like him.
He says he’s going to hate all the Irish, and his Cuban friends will
hate all the Irish. But, he has no Cuban friends. They stay away
from him. And his family’s ashamed of him.”
“Oh, hell. He didn’t obey me. He refused to open the magazine.
I don’t want to be caught in a sex and nationality war.”
Melvin asked me to meet with him and Hector in the guidance
office.
“Hector, Mr. McCourt wants you and him to understand each
other.”
“I don’t care what Mr. McCourt wants. I don’t want an Irish
teacher. They drink. They hit people for no reason.”
“Hector, you didn’t open the magazine when I told you.”
He stared at me with cold dark eyes. “You’re not a teacher. My
mother was a teacher.”
“Your mother ...” I almost said it, but he was gone. Melvin
shook his head, and I knew that my time at Fashion High School
was finished. Melvin said that Hector could take me to court for
attacking him. If he did, I was in big trouble.
O f course, the head of the department heard about my problem
with Hector. He said nothing until the day before the vacation
began. Then he put a letter in my mailbox saying there would be
no job for me after the vacation.
When I met him in the hall, he said I shouldn’t stop trying.
I might succeed as a teacher. He’d noticed that sometimes my
lessons were very good, especially the one about the ballpoint pen
and the sentence.

38
 C hapter 11 T he M oon in the Lake
Alberta says they’re looking for a teacher at her high school,
Seward Park on the Lower East Side. There are students from
all kinds of backgrounds in this school: Jewish, Chinese, Puerto
Rican, Greek, Dominican, Russian, Italian. I’ve had no training
for teaching English as a Second Language. These students don’t
want to know about English literature, they want to speak the
language. If you can’t speak English, you’ll look stupid and you
won’t make new friends.
The bell rings and I can hear many different languages in my
class.
“Excuse me.”
They ignore me or they don’t understand my polite request.
Again. “Excuse me.”
A big red-haired Dominican boy called Oscar catches my eye.
“Teacher, you want help?”
He climbs up on his desk and everyone cheers because this is
against the rules.
“Hey,” Oscar shouts. “Be quiet. Listen to the teacher.”
“Thanks, Oscar, but would you please climb down?”
“So, mister, what’s your name?”
I write on the board, MR. McCOURT.
“Hey, mister, you Jewish?’
“No.”
“All the teachers here are Jewish. Why aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
The class is shocked into silence. What? The teacher doesn’t
know? Maybe this teacher man’s human like us?
A few years ago I was the same as them, recently arrived in
America and the bottom of the social ladder. Even now, although
I know English, I understand their fears and confusions. I could
easily sit down with them, ask them about their families, tell them

39
 about myself. I want to lock the door and shut out the world
until they speak enough English to get a girl.
I look at this collection of kids from all continents, faces of all
colors and shapes: Asians with black hair and eyes; the great brown
eyes of Hispanic boys and girls; the shyness of some, the loudness
of others. I feel at home with them all.
♦
Nancy Chu asks if she can talk to me after class. She sits at her
desk and waits for the room to be empty.
“I’m here three years, from China.”
“Your English is very good, Nancy.”
“Thank you. I learned English from Fred Astaire”
“Fred Astaire?”
“I know all the songs from his movies. My favorite is Top Hat. I
sing his songs all the time. My parents think I’m crazy. My friends,
too. I have trouble with my parents all the time because of Fred
Astaire.”
“Well, it’s unusual, Nancy”
“Also, I watch you teach. And I wonder why you’re so nervous.
You know English, so you should be relaxed. The kids all say, if
they knew English they’d be so relaxed. Sometimes you’re not
nervous, and the kids like that. They like it when you tell stories
and sing. When I’m nervous, I sing ‘Dancing in the Dark’. You
should learn that, Mr. McCourt, and sing it to the class. You don’t
have such a bad voice.”
“Nancy, I’m an English teacher. I’m not a song-and-dance
man.”
“Could you tell me how to be an English teacher?”
“But what will your parents say?”
“They think I’m crazy already. They say they’re sorry they ever
brought me from China, where there’s no Fred Astaire. They say
I’m not even Chinese now. They think it’s a waste of time to be

40
 a teacher and to listen to Fred Astaire. ‘You come here to make
money,’ my parents say Mr. McCourt, will you tell me how to be
an English teacher?”
“I will, Nancy.”
The next day in class, Nancy Chu says, “You were lucky you
knew English when you came to America. How did you feel
when you came to America?”
“Confused. Do you know what confused means?”
The word goes around the room. They explain it to each other
in their own languages. They’re surprised their teacher was as
confused as they are now.
I tell them I had trouble with language and the names of things
when I came to New York. I didn’t even know what a hot dog
was.
Nancy dreams of taking her mother to a Fred Astaire movie
because her mother never goes out and she’s a very intelligent
woman. Her mother knows many Chinese poems, especially
poems by Li Po.“Have you ever heard of Li Po, Mr. McCourt?”
“No.”
She tells the class her mother loves Li Po because he died in a
beautiful way. One bright moonlit night, he drank rice wine and
took his boat out on a lake. He could see the moon in the water
and thought it looked so beautiful. When he reached out to touch
it, he fell into the lake and died.
Nancy’s mother dreamed of going back to China and taking
a boat out on the same lake. If she got very old or had a serious
illness, she wanted to reach over the side of the boat and touch
the moon in the water. Nancy has tears in her eyes when she tells
us this.
When the bell rings, the students don’t jump from their seats.
They take their things and leave the classroom quietly. I’m sure
they all have pictures of moons and lakes in their heads.

41
 C hapter 12 A Trip to the M ovies
In 1968, at Seward Park High School, I had five classes: three
English as a Second Language classes and two regular ninth-grade
English classes. In one of those ninth-grade classes, there were
twenty-nine girls.
The girls ignored me, a white guy standing up there trying to
get their attention. They had stuff to talk about. There was always
an adventure from last night. Boys. Boys. Boys. Serena said she
didn’t go out with boys. She went out with men. She had red hair,
coffee-colored skin, and was so thin that tight clothes hung loose
on her. She was fifteen and the center of the class.
The class complained to me. “We don’t do anything in this class.
Other classes do interesting things. Why don’t we?”
I brought in a tape recorder. I was sure they’d like to hear
themselves talking. Serena took the microphone.
“My sister was taken away by the police last night. My sister’s a
nice person. She only took two pieces of meat from a store. White
people take things all the time, but the police don’t stop them. I’ve
seen white women walk out of the store with whole chickens under
their dresses. Now my sister’s in prison until she goes to court.”
She stopped, looked at me for the first time and gave me the
microphone. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. You’re just a
teacher. You’re just a white man.” She turned away and walked to
her seat.
For the first time that year the room was quiet. They waited for
me to speak, but I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Anyone else?” I finally asked.
They stared at me silently. Then a hand went up. It was Maria,
a smart well-dressed girl who kept a well-ordered notebook. She
had a question.
“Other classes go to the movies. Why can’t we go to the
movies?”

42
 The class cheered their agreement with her.
“OK,” I agreed.
The next day, they brought me notes from their parents giving
them permission to take a trip to see a movie. About twelve of
the notes were forged.
On the six-block walk to the subway, the group of twenty-nine
black girls and one white teacher received a lot of attention. The
kids ran into stores to buy candy, hot dogs, and bottles of pink
drink.
Down the steps, into the subway. They ran through the gates as
ticket collectors shouted at them. I walked slowly, pretending I
wasn’t with them.
They ran backwards and forwards, impatient for the train. They
pretended to push each other onto the line. “Teacher, teacher, she
tried to kill me. Did you see that?”
People waiting for the train stared angrily at me. A man said,
“Why don’t they go back where they belong? They don’t know
how to behave like humans.”
I wanted to be brave and defend my twenty-nine noisy girls.
You try it, Mister Angry Citizen. You try taking twenty-nine girls
on the subway, all excited about being fifteen and escaping from
school for a day, all filled with sugar from cookies, candy, and pink
drinks. Try teaching them every day while they look at you like
you’re a white snowman in the sun.
I said nothing and hoped the train would arrive soon.
On the train they screamed and pushed and fought for seats.
The passengers looked unfriendly. “Why aren’t these kids in
school? I’m not surprised they’re so stupid.”
At West Fourth Street a fat white woman got on the train. The
girls stared at her and laughed. She stared back. “What are you
looking at?”
Serena said, “We’ve never seen a mountain get on a train
before.”

43
 The other twenty-eight girls laughed. Serena stared, unsmiling,
at the large woman, who said, “Come here and I’ll show you how
a mountain can move.”
I was the teacher. I had to do something, but what? Then I
had a strange feeling. I looked at the other passengers with their
unfriendly, angry faces, and I wanted to defend my twenty-nine
students.
I stood with my back to the large woman to stop Serena from
getting near her.
The girls called,“Get her, Serena! Get her!”
The train pulled into the Fourteenth Street station, and the
large woman got out. “You’re lucky I have to get off here,” she
said to Serena, “or I’d eat you for breakfast.”
Serena stared at her. “Yeah, fat woman, you really need
breakfast.”
I moved in front of Serena to stop her from following the
woman off the train. She looked at me in a way that was satisfying
but puzzling. If I could win her support, the class would be with
me. They’d say, “That’s Mr. McCourt, the teacher who stopped
Serena from getting into a fight with a white woman on the train.
He’s on our side. He’s OK.”
Along Forty-second Street, toward Times Square, Maria walked
beside me. She said, “You know, we’ve never been to Times
Square before.”
I wanted to hug her for talking to me. Instead I said, “You
should come here at night to see the lights.”
At the theater they rushed to the ticket office, pushing each
other out of the way. Five stayed near me, giving me embarrassed
looks.
“W hat’s the matter? Aren’t you getting tickets?” I asked.
They looked away and said they had no money. I thought of
saying, “Well, why the hell did you come here?” but I didn’t want
to spoil my new, good relationship with them.

44
 I bought the tickets, hoping there might be a friendly look or
a thank you. Nothing. They took the tickets and ran straight to
a store. They’d lied about having no money. They went into the
theater with candy and bottles of drink.
I followed them inside, where they pushed and fought for seats,
bothering the other customers. A woman complained to me. I
asked the girls to sit down and be quiet.
They ignored me. They threw candy at each other and shouted
loudly, “Hey, when are we going to see the movie?”
The woman warned me that she might have to call the
manager.
I said, “Yes, I want to be here when the manager comes. I want
to see what the manager does with them.”
The lights went down, the movie started, and my twenty-nine
girls became silent. When it ended and the lights came on, no one
moved.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s go. It’s finished.”
“We know it’s finished.We’re not blind.”
“We have to go home now.”
They said they were going to see the movie again.
I told them I was leaving.
“OK, you’re leaving.”
They stayed to watch the movie for a second time.

C hapter 13 Hamlet
The following week a note in my mailbox advertised a trip for
our students to see a performance of Hamlet at a college on Long
Island. I threw it into the wastepaper basket. Hamlet would be
wasted on this class, I thought.
The next day, there were questions.
“Why are the other classes going on a trip to see a play?”

45
 “Well, it’s a play by Shakespeare.”
“So?”
I said it was a hard play to understand. I didn’t think they’d like
it.
“Oh, yeah? So what’s it about?”
“It’s called Hamlet. A prince comes home to discover that his
father is dead and his mother’s already married to his father’s
brother. Hamlet’s angry because he thinks his uncle murdered his
father.”
The idea interested them.
Serena said, “So why aren’t we going to see this play? Is it
because the prince is white?”
“All right. I’ll see if we can go with the other classes.”
A few days later, I took the girls to see the play. As usual, they
pushed and fought each other for seats. They laughed and joked a
bit during the play, but they didn’t behave too badly.
The next day in class Claudia wanted to know, “Why’s
everybody mean to the girl?”
“Ophelia?”
“Yeah, everybody’s mean to her and she’s not even black. Why?
Nobody tries to push that Hamlet guy in the river. He’s a prince
but he’s unkind to his mother. Why doesn’t she get up and hit
him across the face?”
Serena, the smart one, put her hand up like an ordinary girl in
an ordinary class. I stared at the hand. I was sure she was going
to ask for the bathroom. She said, “Hamlet’s mom is a queen.
Queens don’t hit their children like other people. Queens have to
act different.”
She gave me a straight, confident look. Eyes wide and beautiful,
a small smile. This thin, black fifteen-year-old knew her power. I
felt my face going red, and all the girls started laughing.
♦

46
The following Monday, Serena doesn’t return to class. The girls
say she’s never coming back because her mother’s gone to prison
for drugs and stuff Now Serena has to live with her grandmother
in Georgia, where white people are mean to black people. They
say Serena will never stay there. She’ll soon get into trouble.
A month after Serena leaves, Maria puts up her hand. “Mr.
McCourt, I got a letter from Serena. She said it’s her first ever
letter, and her grandmother made her write it. She never met her
grandmother before, but she loves her because the old lady can’t
read or write, and Serena reads the Bible to her every night. And
you’ll like this, Mr. McCourt. She said she’s going to finish high
school and go to college to teach little kids. Not big kids like
us because we’re not polite. She wants me to tell you she’s sorry
about the things she did in class. One day she’s going to write you
a letter.”
Fires of happiness burn inside me. I’ve never felt so good.

C hapter 14 A ndrew and th e T iltin g Chair

There’s a difficult student in every class. He usually sits at the
back, where he can tilt his chair against the wall. You’ve already
told the class about the dangers of tilting. “The chair could fall,
children, and you could be hurt. Then teacher will have to write
a report to stop parents from complaining.”
Andrew knows the tilting chair will make you angry. Then he
can play the little game that will catch the eyes of the girls. You’ll
say, “ H ey, Andrew.’’
He won’t answer immediately. He’ll wait for the girls to look at
him.
“What?”
“The chair, Andrew. Would you put it down, please?”
“I’m not doing anything.”

47
 “The chair, Andrew, has four legs.Tilting could cause an accident.”
Silence in the classroom. This time you feel confident. Andrew
is disliked by the group, and he knows he’ll get no support
from them. He’s a pale, thin figure, a lonely boy. But the class
is watching him with interest. They may not like him, but they
won’t like it if the teacher’s unkind to him. When it’s boy against
teacher, they always support the boy.
So, teacher man, what’s the problem? Simple. Andrew has shown
his dislike for you from day one and you don’t like being disliked.
He waits. The class waits. The chair’s still tilting. I’d love to take
one of its legs and pull. His head would hit the wall and everyone
would laugh.
I turn away from Andrew. I don’t know why I’m turning away
and walking to the front of the room. I really don’t know what
I’ll do or say when I reach my desk. I don’t want them to think
I’ve lost. I know I have to act. Andrew’s head rests against the wall,
and he’s giving me a small, unpleasant smile.
I don’t like Andrew’s long, red hair, or his thin face. Sometimes,
when the lesson’s going well, I see his cold, unfriendly stare.
Should I try to win his support, or should I destroy him
completely?
A voice in my head tells me, “Turn the situation to your
advantage. Pretend you planned the whole thing.” And I say to
the class, “So, what’s happening here?”They stare. They’re puzzled.
I say, “Imagine you’re a newspaper reporter.You walked into this
room a few minutes ago. What did you see? What did you hear?
What’s the story?”
Michael puts his hand up. “No story. Just Andrew being stupid
as usual.”
Andrew loses his little smile and I feel I’m winning. I won’t
have to say much. Continue with the questions and let the class
attack him. I’ll take that smile off his face and he’ll never tilt
again.

48
 I play the part of the calm, patient teacher. “That sentence,
Michael, doesn’t give the reader much information.”
“Yeah, but who needs information like that? Is some guy from
the Daily News going to walk in here and write a big story about
Andrew and the chair and the angry teacher?”
His girlfriend puts her hand up.
“Yes, Diane?”
“I’m going to tell Andrew to put his chair down.”
She’s sixteen, tall and calm. She reminds me of a Scandinavian
actress with her long, yellow hair hanging down her back. I’m
nervous when she walks to the back of the room and stands in
front of Andrew.
“W hat’s going on inside your head, Andrew? You’re wasting
everybody’s time, so what’s your problem? The teacher’s getting
paid to teach us. He’s not paid to tell you to put your chair down.
Right, Andrew?”
He’s still tilting but he’s looking at me with a question in his
eyes: “What should I do?”
He tilts his chair forward until it’s flat. He stands and looks at
Diane. His thoughts are clear: “See? You’ll never forget me, Diane.
You’ll forget this whole class; you’ll forget the teacher. But I tilt
my chair, the teacher gets angry, and everyone in this class will
remember me forever. Right, Mr. McCourt?”
I want to say what I’m really thinking: “Listen, you little fool,
put the chair down or I’ll throw you out the window.” But you
can’t talk like that. You’d be reported to the principal. You know
your job. If they make you angry, you have to suffer in silence. No
one’s forcing you to stay in this miserable, badly-paid job. If you
want to leave, no one will stop you. But stop dreaming. Get back
to work. Talk to your class. The problem of the tilting chair’s not
finished yet. The class is waiting.
“Are you listening?” They smile. “You saw what happened in
this room. So you have material for a story, don’t you? We’ve had

49
 a problem, Andrew against the teacher. Andrew against the class.
Andrew against himself. You were watching, weren’t you? What
were you thinking? Why’s the teacher getting so angry? Or, why’s
Andrew behaving so stupidly? If you were reporting this, you’d
have to think about a third thing. Why was Andrew doing this?
Only Andrew knows why he was tilting his chair. You can guess
his reasons if you want to. I think we could make about thirty
guesses.”
The next day, Andrew stays in the classroom after the class. “Mr.
McCourt, you went to New York University, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“Well, my mother said she knew you.”
“Really? I’m happy to know that someone remembered me.”
“I mean, she knew you outside of class.”
“Really?”
“She died last year. Her name was June.”
Oh, God! How could I be so slow? Why didn’t I guess? Why
didn’t I see her in his eyes?
“She often wanted to call you, but she had a bad time with
my father and her illness. She made me promise never to tell you
about her. She said you probably wouldn’t want to talk to her.”
But I did want to talk to her. I wanted to talk to her forever.
“Who did she marry? W ho’s your father?”
“I don’t know who my father is. She married Gus Peterson. I
have to go and pack my things. My dad’s moving to Chicago and
I’m going with him and his new wife.”
We shake hands and I watch him walk down the hallway. Before
he disappears, he turns and waves. I wonder for a second whether
I should let the past go so easily.

50
 C hapter 15 A F ailed E verything
This is the situation in the public schools of America: the farther
you travel from the classroom, the greater your financial and
professional rewards are. Get your license and teach for two or
three years. After you take courses in management and careers
guidance, you can move to an office with private toilets, long
lunches, and secretaries. You won’t have to work with difficult
kids all day. If you hide in your office, you won’t even have to see
them.
But here I was, thirty-eight years old, not wanting to climb
in the school system but not wanting to stay where I was. I had
other problems, too. My marriage was in trouble. Alberta said I
was impossible to live with because I was filled with anger about
my childhood. We had violent fights. My life was going wrong,
and I thought there was no escape. What could I do?
My wife made a suggestion. “Why don’t you do a doctorate in
English and go up in the world?”
“I will,” I decided.
New York University accepted me, but my wife advised me to
go to London or Dublin.
“Do you want me to leave?” I joked.
She smiled.
Trinity College, Dublin, accepted me. I kissed my wife goodbye
and sailed to Ireland on the Queen Elizabeth. It was the ship’s
second last trip across the Atlantic. I stayed in Dublin for two
years, but it wasn’t a success. I was homesick and I drank too
much. I also realized, too late, that I’d chosen the wrong research
subject for my doctorate. I went for long walks around the city,
up one street and down the other. I met a woman who fell in
love with me. I didn’t know why. I thought about New York—the
schools, the bars, the friends—and I wanted to go home.
In January 1971 I returned to New York without a doctorate.

51
 Alberta was going to have a baby—the result of a vacation
together the summer before. I pretended to continue with my
studies, but I wasn’t serious. When Alberta left her teaching job at
Seward Park High School to have our baby, I taught there instead
of her. A month after I started there, the principal died of a heart
attack. Then I met the new principal in the elevator. I’d met him
before. He was the man who had, years earlier, asked me to leave
Fashion High School. I said, “Are you following me?” He didn’t
smile. A few weeks later, I lost my job.
I was a failed everything. I looked for my place in the world.
I became a substitute teacher, moving from school to school.
Students ignored me, and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t
care if students came to class or not. Principals looked displeased
when they saw me sitting at a desk in an almost empty classroom,
reading a newspaper. They said I should be teaching. “I’d gladly
teach,” I replied. “But this is a science class and my subject is
English.” They knew it was a silly question, but they had to ask. It
was their job: “Where are the kids?”
Everyone in school knew the rule. When you see a substitute
teacher, run, baby, run.

C hapter 16 Stuyvesant H igh S ch ool

A year after I returned from Dublin, an old friend introduced
me to Roger Goodman, the head of the English Department
at Stuyvesant High School. He asked me if I’d be interested in
teaching there for a couple of months. Stuyvesant was said to be
the top high school in the city. If you studied at Stuyvesant, doors
opened to the best universities in the country. Every year, thirteen
thousand children tried to get in. Only seven hundred succeeded.
After two months, Roger Goodman asked me to stay longer.
I accepted, but I promised myself that it was only for two years.

52
Teachers all over the city wanted jobs at Stuyvesant High School,
but I wanted to be out in the world. I wanted to be doing
something adult and important. I wanted to have a secretary, fly
to important meetings, drink in fashionable bars, go to bed with
beautiful women ...
When my daughter was born, these dreams disappeared. Her
sweet reality was more important than anything else, and I began
to feel at home in the world. Every morning, after giving Maggie
her bottle, I took the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan. From
there, I walked along Fifteenth Street to Stuyvesant, went up to
my classroom, and relaxed for a few minutes, looking at the empty
desks and thinking of my daughter.
♦
If you asked the boys and girls of Stuyvesant High School to
write three hundred fifty words on any subject, they’d write
five hundred. If you gave all the students in your five classes
written homework just once a week, you’d have to read 43,750
words. If you spent five minutes on each paper, you’d be grading
homework for fourteen and a half hours a week. That’s how I
spent every weekend.
Every day I carried home books and papers in my old, brown
bag. The bag sat on the floor in a corner by the kitchen, like a
dog waiting for my attention. I didn’t want to hide it in a closet
because I might forget to read and correct the homework.
I couldn’t do it before dinner, so I waited until later. I helped
with the dishes, put my daughter to bed. Now, get that bag, man.
Sit on the couch, listen to some music, relax for a minute. Close
your eyes ... suddenly you wake up. There are papers on the
floor. You must start work. Look at the first paper. Well-written.
Organized. Bitter. This girl’s writing about her mother’s new
husband. He invites her to movies and dinner when her mother
works late. Her mother says, “Oh, that’s nice.” But he looks at

53
her strangely. There’s something frightening about his eyes, and
then the silence. The writer wonders what she should do. Is she
asking me, the teacher? Should I do something? Should I help her
with her problem, if there is a problem? She might be inventing
it. If I said something to her, what would happen if her mother
or her mothers husband heard? No, I should grade her paper
and congratulate the writer on her organization and good use
of vocabulary. There are some spelling mistakes, but I give her a
good grade. “This is good work, Janice. I hope to see more of it
next week.”
♦
In 1974, my third year at Stuyvesant, I’m invited to be the new
Creative Writing teacher. I know nothing about writing or
how to teach it. Roger Goodman says, “Don’t worry. There are
hundreds of creative writing teachers who have never written a
book.”
I have the usual five classes a day, three “regular” English, two
Creative Writing. There are thirty-seven students in my first class.
They complain when I say we’re going to read A Tale of Two
Cities . “Why can’t we read The Lord of the Rings , or a science
fiction book? Why can’t we ...?”
“Enough.” I tell them about French history in the 1790s. I talk
about the cruel, rich king and the poor, suffering people. I’m on
the side of the poor people, and I enjoy getting angry about the
unfairness of life. “Even today,” I say, “there are many millions
of people with no comfortable beds, no hot water, no soap, no
warm, white bathrooms.”
The students listen politely, but I know they’re bored.
“You’ll go home to your comfortable apartments and houses,”
I continue, “and go straight to the refrigerator. It will be full of
food, but nothing inside it will please you. You’ll ask Mom if you
can send out for a pizza. She’ll say, ‘O f course you can. You have

54
a hard life, learning about poor people in France every day at
school.You deserve a little reward.’”
The students stare patiently. Do they know I’m enjoying
myself with this long, angry speech? It isn’t their fault if they are
middle-class and comfortable. To them, I am just another boring
old teacher. I am following the old Irish tradition of complaining
bitterly about everything.
In front of me, Sylvia puts her hand up. “Calm down, Mr.
McCourt. Relax. Where’s that big Irish smile?”
I start to say that there is nothing funny about the suffering of poor
people in France in the 1790s, but there is an explosion of laughter
in the class. Sylvia smiles up at me, and I feel weak and foolish. I sit
down and let them joke for the rest of the hour. When the class ends,
Ben Chan stays behind. “Mr. McCourt, could I talk to you?”
He knows what I was saying about poor people. The kids in
this class don’t understand anything. But it isn’t their fault, and I
shouldn’t get angry. He is twelve, but he came to this country four
years ago. He knew no English, but he studied hard and learned
enough English to pass the Stuyvesant High School entrance
examination. He is happy to be here, and his whole family is so
proud of him. He beat fourteen thousand kids to get into this
school. His father works six days a week, twelve hours a day, in
a restaurant in Chinatown. His mother works in a small factory.
Every night she cooks dinner for the whole family—five children,
her husband, herself. Then she helps get their clothes ready for
the next day. She makes sure the children sit at the kitchen table
and do their homework. His parents learn English words every
day so they can talk to the teachers. Ben says everybody in his
family respects each other. No one in his family would ever laugh
about poor people in France. They are the same as poor people in
China or even in Chinatown, here in New York.
I tell him the story of his family was wonderful. I advise him to
write it down and read it to the class.

55
 “Oh, no, I could never do that. Never.”
“Why not? The other kids in the class would learn something
important about life.”
He says, no, he could never write or talk to anyone else about
his family. His father and mother would be ashamed.
“Ben, thank you for telling me about your family.”
“Oh, I told you because I didn’t want you to feel bad after that
class.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
“Thank you, Mr. McCourt. And don’t worry about Sylvia. She
really likes you.”
♦
When my marriage ended, I was forty-nine. Maggie was eight.
Teaching forced me to forget my problems. I could cry into my
beer in the evening, but in the classroom I had to think about my
work. Soon, I could borrow some money for an apartment from
a teachers’ organization. Until then, Yonk Kling, an artist in his
mid-sixties, invited me to stay in his apartment on Hicks Street
near Atlantic Avenue.
♦
My Creative Writing classes were so popular with the students
that there were never enough chairs for them. Why were the
students so enthusiastic? Was it my excellent teaching, my
wonderful personality, my Irish humor? Did the boys and girls
suddenly want to discuss great things?
Or was it because they knew that my classes were so easy?
“McCourt just talks all the time, then gives everyone high
grades?”
Although the students were afraid of other teachers, they
respected them. They worked hard and they deserved their good
grades. But in my classes they were confused. I asked them lots of

56
questions: Why was Hamlet unkind to his mother? Why didn’t he
kill the king when he had the chance? But I never gave them any
answers. “This is America, not Ireland. We like answers here. Or
maybe he doesn’t know the answers himself.”
I wanted to be respected as a serious teacher. I didn’t want to be
popular only because my class was so easy. “Oh, McCourt’s class is
garbage. Talk, talk, talk. If you don’t get a grade A in his class, you
must be stupid.”
I joined Yonk one afternoon at a waterfront bar on Atlantic
Avenue. He told me I looked terrible.
“Thanks,Yonk.”
“Have some wine.”
“Just one glass. I have a million papers to correct.”
I told Yonk about my problem. “I’m too easy. People don’t
respect easy teachers. I want to make them earn their grades.
Have respect. Hundreds of them want my classes, and that bothers
me. One mother begged me to let her daughter into my class. She
even invited me to spend the weekend with her. I said no.”
Yonk shook his head and said that sometimes I was not very
smart. If I didn’t relax a bit, I’d soon become a miserable old
man. I should learn to spread a little happiness. “A weekend with
the mother, a bright writing future for her little girl. W hat’s the
matter with you?”
“There wouldn’t be any respect.”
“Oh, never mind respect. Have another glass of wine.”

C hapter 17 T he D in n er C onversation
Before Stuyvesant, it was my job to stop students from behaving
badly. There, there was no noisy behavior. No flying sandwiches.
No pushing or shouting. No excuses for not teaching. If you
didn’t perform, you’d lose their respect.

57
 The students never stopped trying to get me away from
traditional English, but I knew their tricks. I still told stories, but
I was learning to connect them to characters in literature. I was
finding my voice and my style of teaching. I was learning to be
comfortable in the classroom. And at Stuyvesant, I was free to use
whatever teaching methods I wanted.
I gave them lessons on music and food. If they complained
about studying serious poems, I sang them childrens songs or
talked about childrens stories. Soon, the ideas from these songs
and stories were connected to more complicated ideas by more
serious writers. The method seemed to work. The students didn’t
realize they were studying. They thought they were just talking
about life.
Whenever a lesson got boring and students began asking for the
bathroom, I started a conversation about dinner.
“James, what did you have for dinner last night?”
“Chicken.”
“Where did it come from?”
“What do you mean?’
“Did someone buy it, James, or did it fly in the window?”
“My mother bought it.”
“So your mother does the shopping?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Does she work?”
“Yeah, she’s a legal secretary.”
“Who cooks the chicken?”
“My mother.” <
“And what are you doing while your mother’s in the kitchen?”
“I’m in my room.”
“Doing what?”
“Homework, or listening to music.”
“And what’s your father doing?”
“Watching the news on TV.”

58
 “Who helps your mother in the kitchen?”
“Mr. McCourt, I don’t know why you’re asking me all these
questions. They’re so boring.”
I turned to the class. “What do you think? This is a writing
class. Did you learn anything about James and his family? Is there
a story here? Jessica?”
“My mom would never accept that sort of behavior. James
and his dad get royal treatment. I’d like to know who washes the
dishes. No, I don’t have to ask. It’s the mom.”
I was enjoying myself, and turned to Daniel.
“Daniel, what did you have for dinner last night.”
“French-style chicken with baby potatoes and Italian wine.”
“Did your mother cook the meal?”
“No, the servant did.”
“Oh, the servant. And what was your mother doing?”
“She was with my father.”
“So the servant cooked the dinner and served it?”
“That’s right.”
“And you ate alone?”
“Yes”
“On a shining table of expensive wood, I suppose?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you have music in the background?”
“Yes. I listened to Telemann for twenty minutes. He’s one of my
father’s favorites. When it ended, I called my father.”
“And where was he?”
“He’s in Sloan-Kettering hospital. My mother’s with him all the
time because he’s dying.”
“Oh, Daniel, I’m sorry. Why didn’t you tell me? I was wrong to
ask you all those questions.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s going to die whatever we say.”
It was quiet in the classroom. What could I say now to Daniel?
I’d played my little game. I’d been a smart, funny teacher, and

59
 Daniel had been patient. Details of his lonely dinner filled the
classroom. His father was here. We waited by a bed with Daniels
mother. We’d remember forever the French-style chicken, the
servant, and Daniel alone at the shining, expensive table while his
father was dying.

C hapter 18 P roblem s w ith Parents

On Open School Day, the kids are sent home at noon and the
parents come in from one o’clock to three o’clock, and again in
the evening from seven o’clock to nine o’clock. At the end of the
day, teachers are tired from talking to hundreds of parents. There
are three thousand kids in the school, and that should add up to
six thousand parents. But this is New York, where almost half the
parents are separated. So, there might be ten thousand adults—
moms and dads with their new partners. All of them are sure that
their children are the smartest in the world. They expect great
things for their children, and only total success will satisfy them.
Stanley’s parents have separated, and they don’t like each other.
I’m not surprised Stanley has emotional problems. The mother
lives in a large, six-room apartment on the Upper West Side. Dad
is in a small, dirty apartment in the Bronx. Stanley spends half
the week with his mom and half with his dad, but he’s good-
humored about it. H e’s good at math, and he thinks of his life
as a mathematical problem. If a = 3J4 and b = 3Yiu then what is
Stanley?
My monitor on Open School Night is Maureen McSherry. She
tells me that Stanley’s mother and father are waiting to see me.
And, Maureen adds, there are six more couples who refuse to sit
next to each other, all fighting and wanting to talk to me.
Stanley’s mother, Rhonda, smells of tobacco. She tells me not
to believe anything that Stanley’s father tells me. She feels sorry

60
 for Stanley because he has such a terrible father. “Hows Stanley
doing at school?”
“Oh, fine. Hes a good writer and popular with the other kids.”
“Well, that’s a surprise, with such a stupid father. I do my best
with Stanley when he’s with me. But he gets so upset about
having to spend three and a half days a week with his father. He’s
started staying out at night. He says he’s staying with friends, but
I don’t believe him. I know he’s got a girlfriend whose parents
don’t care what they do.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that. I’m just his
teacher, and it’s impossible to get into the private lives of one
hundred seventy-five kids.”
A few minutes later, I am talking to Stanley’s dad, Ben. He says,
“I heard what she said.” He laughs and shakes his head. “But let’s
not talk about her. I have this problem with Stanley now. I’ve
spent all this money on his education, and do you know what
he wants to do? He wants to go to New England and study the
guitar. Tell me, how much money can you earn playing the guitar?
I told him I wouldn’t let him. We agreed from day one that he
was going to work in the financial world. There was never any
doubt about that. I mean, what am I working for? A guitar player?
No, sir. ‘Get your degree and play your guitar in your free time,’
I tell him. He cries. He says he’s going to live with his mother. I
wouldn’t want my worst enemy to do that. So, I wonder if you
could speak to him? I know he likes your class, talking about food
and whatever else you do here.”
“I’d like to help, but I’m not a guidance counselor. I’m an
English teacher.”
“OK, it doesn’t matter. Tell me, how’s he doing?”
“He’s doing well.”
The bell rings and Maureen, who’s not shy, says that there’s no
more time. She’d be glad to take names and phone numbers of
anyone who wants to meet me another day. She passes around a

61
 sheet of paper, which no one writes on. They want my attention
here and now. They’ve waited half the night while these other
crazy people talked about their problem kids. O f course the kids
have problems—look at the parents. They follow me angrily along
the hall, asking how Adam’s doing, Sergei, Juan, Naomi? What
sort of school is this where you can’t even talk to the teacher for
a minute? What are we paying taxes for?
At nine o’clock, the teachers leave and go for a drink. We sit
at a table in the back of the local bar and order large glasses of
beer. Our mouths are dry from talking all night. I tell the other
teachers that in all my years at Stuyvesant, only one parent, a
mother, has ever asked me if her son was enjoying school. I said,
yes, he seemed to be enjoying himself. She smiled, stood up, said,
“Thank you,” and left. One parent in all those years.
“They only care about success and money, money, money,” says
Connie, another teacher. “They have high hopes for their kids.
We’re like workers in a factory. Our job is get their children ready
to perform for parent and employer.”
A group of parents comes into the bar. One comes over to me.
“This is nice,” she said. “You have time to drink beer but no time
for a parent who waited half an hour to see you.”
I tell her I’m sorry.
She angrily joins her group at another table. I feel so tired that
I drink too much and stay in bed the next morning. Why didn’t I
just tell that mother to go to hell?
*

C hapter 19 B ob and K en
In my class, Bob Stein never sat at a desk. Maybe he was too big
for it, but he liked to sit in the window seat at the back of the
room. When he was comfortable, he smiled and waved. “Good
morning, Mr. McCourt. Isn’t this a great day?”

62
 He wore the same clothes all year: a white shirt open at the
neck, a gray jacket, short pants, thick gray socks, and yellow
builders’ boots. He carried no bag, no books, no notebooks,
no pen. He joked that it was my fault because I’d once talked
excitedly about Thoreau. The simple life was best, I’d said.
Everyone should throw away what they owned.
When I gave the class written work, he always asked to borrow
a pen and some paper.
“Bob, this is a writing class.You need a pen and paper.”
He told me not to worry. Snow was appearing on my head, he
said. I should enjoy my last few years of life.
The class laughed, but he told them he wasn’t joking. In a year’s
time, he said, I’d look back at this minute. And I’d wonder why
I wasted my time and emotions on the absence of his pen and
paper.
I had to play the part of serious teacher. “Bob, you could fail
this class if you don’t do the work.”
“Mr. McCourt, I can’t believe you’re telling me this, with your
miserable childhood in Ireland and everything. But it’s OK. If you
fail me, I’ll take the course again. No big hurry. Another year or
two won’t matter. For you, maybe, but I’m only seventeen. I have
all the time in the world.”
He asked the class if anyone could lend him pen and paper.
There were ten offers, but he took them from Jonathan
Greenberg, who was sitting nearest him. He didn’t want to climb
down from his window seat. He said, “You see how nice people
are, Mr. McCourt? If other people carry big bags with them, you
and I will never have to worry about supplies.”
“Yes, Bob. But that won’t help you next week when we have
the big test on Gilgameshr
“What’s that, Mr. McCourt?”
“It’s the world-literature book.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that book. Big book. I have it at home,

63
 and my dad’s reading the bits about the Bible. My dad’s a Jewish
leader, you know. He was so happy you gave us that book. He said
you must be a great teacher. I told him you were a great teacher
except you worry too much about pens and paper.”
“That’s enough, Bob.You haven’t even looked at the book.”
He told me again not to worry because his father often talked
about the book. He, Bob, would find out all about Gilgamesh
before the big test.
“Bob,” I called across the sound of the class laughing. “It would
make me happier if you read the book yourself.”
“I’d love to, but it doesn’t fit into my plans.”
“And what are your plans, Bob?”
“I’m going to be a farmer.”
He smiled, waved his pen and paper, and apologized for causing
trouble in the class. He, Bob, was ready to work. He suggested
that the others in the class should do the same. But before we
started work, he’d like to explain that he didn’t hate world
literature. He just liked to read farming magazines. Farming was
more complicated than most people realized.
Jonathan Greenberg put up his hand and asked why farming
was so complicated.
Bob looked miserable for a second. “It’s my dad. I told him I
wanted to be a pig farmer. I like pigs. I’m not planning to eat
them, but I’d like to farm them and sell them. W hat’s wrong with
that? They’re really pleasant little animals and they can be very
friendly. I told my dad I’d be married and have kids, and they’ll
like the baby pigs. He almost went crazy, and my mom had to go
and lie down. Maybe I was wrong to tell them, but they always
taught me to tell the truth.”
The bell rang. Bob climbed down from his window seat and
returned the pen and paper to Jonathan. He said his father was
coming to see me on Open School Night next week. He was
sorry for ruining the lesson.

64
 On Open School Night, Bob’s father sat by my desk and shook
his head sadly. “Hows my son doing?” he asked in a German
accent.
“Fine,” I said.
“He’s killing us, breaking our hearts. Did he tell you? He wants
to be a farmer.”
“It’s a healthy life, Mr. Stein.”
“It’s a disaster. We’re not paying for him to go to college so he
can be a pig farmer. People in our street will talk about us. It’s
going to kill my wife. If he wants to be a farmer, he’ll have to pay
for himself. We told him that. He tells us not to worry because big
government programs pay for people like him to study farming.
We’re losing him, Mr. McCourt. Our son is dead to us. We’re
Jewish. We can’t have a son living with pigs every day.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stein.”
♦
Six years later, I met Bob on Lower Broadway. It was a January
day, but he was still wearing his Orson Welles jacket and short
pants. He said, “Hi, Mr. McCourt. Great day, isn’t it?”
“It’s freezing, Bob.”
He told me he was working for a farmer in Ohio, but he wasn’t
working with pigs. He decided not to because it would destroy
his parents. I told him that was a good and loving decision.
He paused and looked at me. “Mr. McCourt, you never liked
me, did you?”
“Never liked you? Are you joking? It was a great pleasure to
have you in my class. Jonathan said you brought sunshine into the
room.”
Tell him the truth, McCourt. Tell him how he brightened your
days, how you told your friends about him. Tell him how you
admired his style, his good humor, his honesty, his bravery. If you
had a son, you’d like the boy to be like him. And tell him how

65
beautiful he was and is in every way. How you loved him then
and love him now. Tell him.
I did, and he was speechless. I hugged him. “Let the people on
Lower Broadway laugh at the sight of the high school teacher
hugging the large Jewish Future Farmer of America,” I thought.
I didn’t care.
♦
Ken was a Korean boy who hated his father. He had to take piano
lessons although his family had no piano. His father made him
practice on the kitchen table until they could afford a real piano.
If he didn’t practice correctly, his father hit him across the fingers
with a large metal spoon. His six-year-old sister, too. When they
got a real piano, his sister played a silly pop song on it. Her father
was so angry that he threw her clothes on the fire.
At Stuyvesant High School, Ken obeyed his father in everything
until he had to choose a college. His father wanted him to go
to Harvard. Everyone in Korea knew about Harvard, the most
famous university in America.
Ken said no. He wanted to go to Stanford in California. He
wanted to live as far away from his father as possible. His father
said no. He would not allow that. Ken said if he didn’t go to
Stanford, he wouldn’t go to college at all. The father was going
to physically attack him in the kitchen, but he was afraid of Ken.
Ken was bigger and stronger. The father walked away angrily.
He didn’t want his son to go to Stanford. But he’d be even more
ashamed if his son didn’t go to college at all.
Ken wrote me from Stanford. He liked the sunshine there.
College life was easier than Stuyvesant High School. There was
less pressure. He’d just had a letter from his mother. She said
he had to spend all his time working, and he mustn’t join any
clubs or do any other extra activities. If he didn’t get grade A for
everything, she wouldn’t allow him to come home for Christmas.

66
 Ken didn’t mind. He didn’t want to come home for Christmas.
He came home only to see his sister.
He appeared at my classroom door a few days before
Christmas and told me I’d helped him get through his last year
of high school. H e’d often dreamed, he told me, of killing his
father. But when he went to Stanford, he began to understand
his father a little more. His father knew almost no English and
spent every working day and night selling fruit and vegetables.
He badly wanted his children to get the education he had
never had. In an English class at Stanford, Ken was asked by the
professor to talk about his favorite poem. Ken remembered a
poem he’d studied in my class, “My Father.” While he was
talking about it, he suddenly started crying in front of all the
other students. The professor put his arm around Ken’s shoulder
and led him down the hallway to his office. He stayed an hour
in the professor’s office, talking and crying. The professor said it
was OK. He had a father who he hadn’t liked— a cruel Polish
Jew. His father had almost died in a German prison camp in
World War II. H e’d come to California and managed a food
store to pay for his three children’s education. The professor
said their two fathers would have a lot to talk about together,
but that would never happen. The Korean grocer and Polish-
Jewish food store manager could never find the words that
come so easily in a university. Ken said he felt much better after
talking to his professor. Now he was going to buy his father
a tie for Christmas and his mother some flowers. Yeah, it was
crazy buying her flowers because they sold them in the store.
But there was a big difference between flowers from a Korean
grocer’s store and flowers from a real flower store.
He couldn’t forget one thing his professor had said. The world
should let the Polish-Jewish father and the Korean father sit in the
sun with their wives. Ken laughed over how excited the professor
became. “Just let them sit in the sun. But the world won’t let them

67
because there’s nothing more dangerous than letting old men sit
in the sun. They might be thinking. And it’s the same with kids.
Keep them busy or they might start thinking.”

C hapter 20 Last D ay in S ch ool

Time passes quickly You’re getting older—and aren’t you a sad,
weak, stupid Irishman? You teach others to write, but you know
your own writing dream is dying. You tell yourself that one day
one of your students will win a National Book Prize. They’ll
invite you to the event, and in a great acceptance speech will
thank you, their teacher, for everything. You’ll be asked to stand,
and you’ll be loudly cheered. This will be your time in the sun,
your reward for thousands of lessons. Your prizewinner hugs you,
and you return quietly to the streets of New York, down the stairs
to your small apartment, some dry bread in the cupboard, a bottle
of water in the refrigerator, a small yellow light hanging over your
single bed.
A young part-time teacher sits beside me in the teachers’
cafeteria. She is going to start her full-time teaching career in
September, so could I offer her any advice?
“Find what you love and do it. That’s my advice. It’s true, I
didn’t always love teaching. It was too difficult. You’re alone in the
classroom, one man or woman in front of five classes of teenagers
every day. You have to find ways of surviving. They may like you,
they may even love you, but they’re young. It’s the business of
young people to push old people off the stage. A teacher’s life
is similar to the life of a professional fighter. One bad fight, and
that’s the end of your career. But if you’re smart and patient,
you’ll learn the tricks. It’s hard but you have to make yourself
comfortable in the classroom. You have to be selfish. Like on an
airplane in an emergency, you must help yourself before you can

68
help the children.
“The classroom is a difficult but exciting place. You’ll never
know the effect you’ve had on the hundreds of children you
teach. You see them leaving the classroom: dreamy, impolite,
smiling, admiring, puzzled. After a few years, you learn to read
their minds quickly. You wouldn’t exist for long in this job if
you didn’t. You’re with the kids and, if you want to be a teacher,
there’s no escape. Don’t expect help from the management, those
people who have escaped from the classroom. They’re busy going
to lunch and thinking higher thoughts. It’s you and the kids. So,
there’s the bell. See you later. Find what you love and do it.”
♦
It was April and sunny outside. I wondered how many more Aprils
I’d spend as a teacher. I was beginning to feel I had nothing more
to say to the high school students of New York about writing or
anything else. I thought I wanted to be out in the world before I
was out of the world. How could I talk about writing when I’d
never written a book. Didn’t they wonder about that? Didn’t they
say, “Why does he talk so much about writing when he’s never
done it himself?”
It was time to stop working. I wouldn’t have much money,
but I could read all the books I’d missed in the last thirty years.
I’d spend hours at the Forty-second Street Library, my favorite
place in New York. I’d walk the streets, have a beer, talk to my
friends, learn the guitar, take my daughter Maggie for dinner in
Greenwich Village, write in my notebooks. Something might
happen.
♦
When Guy Lind was a second-year student, he brought his
umbrella to school on a snowy day. He met a friend on the
second floor who also had an umbrella. They began a playful

69
 fight with their umbrellas, but his friend fell and the end of his
umbrella went through Guy’s eye and into his brain.
They took Guy to Beth Israel Hospital across the street, and
then from city to city and country to country. They even took
him to Israel, where they have the most modern treatment
because of all the fighting.
Guy returned to school in a wheelchair, wearing a piece of
black material over one eye. After a short time, he managed to
walk with the help of a walking stick. As more time passed, he
didn’t need the stick, and he looked completely normal except
for the black cloth over his eye and an arm that he couldn’t move.
It was my last day as a teacher. Guy sat listening to Rachel
Blaustein talking about poems. She enjoyed reading them, but
she couldn’t write them. Why? Because she had nothing to write
about. Everything in her life was perfect. Her parents were happy
and successful. Rachel was their only child, and she was going to
Harvard University. She had no problems.
Someone said, “Why can’t I have no problems?”
Then Guy told the class about his experiences in the last two
years. He’d suffered, but he wouldn’t want to change anything
about his past. He’d met many people in many hospitals whose
lives had been completely destroyed by illness and accidents. It
had made him think differently about his own problems. It had
made him feel lucky. No, he wouldn’t change a thing.
This was their last high school class, and mine. There were tears
when Guy told his story. It reminded us all to think of the good
things in our lives.
The bell rang, and they all said goodbye to me. I was told to
have a good life. I wished them the same. As I left the classroom
for the last time, a voice called out to me.
“Hey, Mr. McCourt, you should write a book.”
I’ll try.
 ACTIVITIES

Chapters 1-3

Before you read

1 Read the Introduction to the book and then answer these
questions.
a For how many years was Frank McCourt a teacher?
b Where did McCourt first read Shakespeare?
c How many books has McCourt written?
d How old was he when his first book appeared?
2 Look at the Word List at the back of the book.
a Which are words for jobs in schools and colleges?
b Which words describe types and levels of education?
c Which are words for things that you can buy in a store?
3 Discuss these questions with another student.
a What is the education system like in your country? What
types of school and college are there? How do students
succeed or fail? How are teachers trained?
b Which of these qualities are most important for a successful
school teacher? Which are least important? Why?
intelligence a sense of humor toughness creativity
a good speaking voice patience a smart appearance
What other qualities would you add to a description of a
successful teacher?

While you read

4 Are these sentences about Mr. McCourt true (T) or false (F)?
a He wrote his first book while he was a teacher.
b He thinks that teachers deserve more respect,
c His students at McKee High School don’t listen
to him at first,
d A student throws a sandwich at him.
e He tells the principal why he ate the sandwich,
f His students are bored by his stories,
g His students think that his answer about sheep is funny,
h Parents complain about his sheep joke.

71
 i He hopes to be a school principal one day...........................
j He tells his students to sleep on the floor. .....

After you read

5 Discuss these questions.
a Which of these words describe Mr. McCourt? Give reasons
for your answers.
confident proud surprised guilty imaginative angry
nervous bored
b How different is McKee Vocational High School from your
school? Which school do you like more? Why?
6 Work with another student. Have this conversation between the
principal and an angry parent.
Student A: You are an angry parent. You do not think that Mr.
McCourt is a good teacher. Tell the principal why.
Student B: You are the principal. Tell the parent why you think that
Mr. McCourt is a good teacher. Make excuses for his
behavior.

Chapters 4-6

Before you read

7 How will these be important in the next three chapters? What do
you think?
a Frank McCourt’s childhood b the students’ parents

While you read

8 Number these events from Mr. McCourt’s life in the correct order,
from 1 to 8.
a He has a girlfriend called June. ....
b He is shouted at by an angry parent,
c He joins the army,
d He goes to university.
e A parent criticizes his teaching. ....
f He leaves Ireland. ....
g His students learn a new word.
h He works on the docks. ....

72
After you read
9 Discuss whether Mr. McCourt likes these people. Give reasons
for your answers,
a his parents
b The Professor of Education at New York University
c June
d Norma
e Paulie’s mother
f Ron
g Kenny Ball
10 Who says these words? Who are they talking to? What are they
talking about?
a “That was wrong of your mother.”
b “Forget the docks.”
c “That’s not the Harry we know.”
d “This place is a madhouse.”
e “Forget the storytelling.”
f “Why did John go to the store?”
11 Discuss these questions with another student. What do you think?
a Is storytelling in class a waste of time? Why (not)?
b Is Mr. McCourt right not to be honest with parents on Open
Day? Why (not)?
c Why does Mr. McCourt feel proud at the end of Chapter 6?
Is he right to feel proud? Why (not)?

Chapters 7-9

Before you read

12 Discuss these questions.
a Will Mr. McCourt want to stay at McKee Vocational High School,
do you think? Why (not)?
b What do you think an “excuse note” tells a teacher?
c What can a school—and a teacher—do with a child who is a
real troublemaker?

73
 While you read
13 Match the people on the left with the sentence endings on
the right.
a Mikey Dolan 1) likes long words.
b Lisa Quinn 2) marries Mr. McCourt.
c Martin Wolfson 3) defends Eve’s behavior.
d Kevin Dunne 4) is Mr. McCourt’s friend.
e Barbara Sadlar 5) congratulates Mr. McCourt.
f Alberta Small 6) is very smart.
g Herbert Miller 7) becomes classroom manager.
h Freddie Bell 8) forges excuse notes.
After you read
14 What is Mr. McCourt’s purpose in using these in his classes?
How successful is he?
a Adam and Eve
b jars of paint
c advice about simple language
d the college library
e gun control
15 In these chapters, what is Mr. McCourt’s
a greatest success?
b biggest mistake?
c saddest experience?
d worst failure?
16 Discuss these questions with another student. What do you think?
a Compare your answers to question 15. Do you agree?
Why (not)?
b Would you behave differently in these situations if you were the
teacher? Why (not)?

Chapters 10-11

Before you read

17 In the next chapter, Mr. McCourt leaves the college and goes to
another high school. Why do you think he does this? Will he be
happier there? Why (not)?

74
While you read
18 Circle the correct word(s) in these sentences about Mr. McCourt.
a He has / wants to leave the college.
b His wife thinks he is dishonest / lazy.
c He says that a ballpoint pen is like a sentence / verb.
d He leaves Fashion High School because he has trouble with a
student / the principal,
e His students at Seward Park High School are more interested in
reading / speaking.
f He thinks that Nancy Chu is crazy / interesting.

After you read

19 Answer these questions.
a Why doesn’t Mr. McCourt’s head of department at Fashion High
School like him?
b Why does Mr. McCourt hit Hector?
c What does Mr. McCourt’s head of department think is a good
idea?
d What problems does Hector have?
e Who helps Mr. McCourt to find the job at Seward Park?
f Who likes American musicals?
g How does Mr. McCourt feel about his students at Seward Park
High School?
h How do the students feel after Nancy Chu talks about her mother?
20 Work with another student. Have this imaginary conversation
between Mr. McCourt and his wife.
Student A: You are Alberta. You want your husband to take more
examinations and stay at the college. Tell him why.
Student B: You are Mr. McCourt. You don’t want to take any more
examinations. Tell your wife why.

Chapters 12-14

Before you read

21 In the next chapters, Mr. McCourt takes his students on trips to
see a movie and a play. What problems do you think he will have?
Which trip do you think the students will enjoy more? Why?

75
While you read
22 Underline the words that are wrong. Write the correct words.
a Serena’s sister stole money from a store.....................................
b Mr. McCourt takes twenty girls to a movie theater. ..................
c On the subway, Mr. McCourt wants to criticize
his students. ..................
d When the movie ends, the girls leave........................ ..................
e He also takes the girls to see Macbeth........................................
f After she goes to Georgia, Serena writes
Mr. McCourt a letter. ..................
g Serena wants to teach high school students. ..................
h Andrew is a popular, pale, thin, red-haired boy...........................
i Andrew’s mother used to be Mr. McCourt’s teacher. ..................

After you read

23 Which of these words describe Mr. McCourt in these chapters?
Why?
angry excited grateful happy surprised shocked
24 Discuss these statements with another student. Do you agree with
them? Why (not)?
a “School trips to the movies are a waste of time.”
b “Mr. McCourt is a good, experienced teacher.”
c “Mr. McCourt is happier now than he used to be.”

Chapters 15-17
Before you read
25 In the next chapter, Mr. McCourt decides to go to Ireland to study
for a doctorate. Is this a good idea? Why (not)?

While you read

26 Does Mr. McCourt do these things? Write yes or no.
a He gets his doctorate.
b He goes back to Fashion High School. ....
c He teaches at a good quality school. ....
d He wants to stop teaching,
e He helps a girl with a personal problem,
f He stays with an artist.

76
 g He answers all his students’ questions,
h He apologizes to a student.

After you read

27 Why is Mr. McCourt unhappy about:
a his time in Ireland?
b the new principal at Seward Park High School?
c substitute teaching?
d his weekends?
e his marriage?
f the success of his creative writing classes?
g the “dinner conversation” with Daniel?
28 Which of these statements would Mr. McCourt agree with, do you
think? Why? Do you agree with them? Why (not)? Discuss your
answers with another student.
a “ It is more important to be rich and famous than to be a poor
schoolteacher.”
b “Teachers should help students with personal problems.”
c “ Respect is more important than happiness.”

Chapters 18-20
Before you read
29 Discuss these questions.
a How do you think Open School Day at Stuyvesant High School
will be different from Open School Day at McKee Vocational
High School (Chapter 5)?
b Will Mr. McCourt be happy or sad when he finally stops
teaching? Why?

While you read

30 Who are these sentences about?
a He wants to study the guitar. ..........................
b They only care about money............................. ..........................
c His father is very religious. ..........................
d His father is afraid of him.................................. ..........................
e His father almost died in World War II. ..........................
f He compares teachers to fighters. ..........................

77
 g He loses his eye in an accident. ..........................
h She can’t write poems...................................... ..........................

After you read

31 Discuss these questions with another student,
a What problems do these people have?
Stanley Bob Stein Ken Guy Lind Rachel Blaustein
b Whose problems are the most serious? Why?
c Whose problems are the least serious? Why?
d What advice would you give to
Stanley’s parents? Bob’s father? Ken’s father?

Writing
32 Write a school inspector’s report on McKee Vocational High
School (Chapters 2-9). Write about the teachers and students,
the guidance counseling, the principal, and the classes, and make
suggestions for improvement.
33 Imagine that Barbara Sadlar’s parents (Chapter 9) have written an
angry letter to Mr. McCourt, saying that they can’t afford to send
Barbara to college. They want her to be a hairdresser and to start
earning money. Write a reply from Mr. McCourt.
34 Imagine that you are Serena (Chapter 13). Write your first letter to
Mr. McCourt from Georgia.
35 Write a letter from Frank McCourt in Ireland (Chapter 15) to his
wife. Why does he want to return home?
36 Write a letter from Alberta Small to her best friend. She wants to
leave her husband (Chapter 16). Explain why.
37 Write four or five sentences about each thesestudents.Do they
like Mr. McCourt. Why (not)?
Mikey Dolan (Chapter 7) Freddie Bell (Chapter 9),
Hector (Chapter 10) Andrew (Chapter 14)
Bob Stein (Chapter 19)
38 If you were a teacher, where would you choose to teach—at
McKee Vocational High School or at Stuyvesant High School?
Why?

78
39 Imagine that you are Frank McCourt. Write about your saddest and
your happiest memories of teaching. Say why you have chosen
them.
40 Do you agree with this statement? Why (not)?
“Open Days for parents are a waste of everybody’s time.”
41 Write about your favorite teacher at school or college. Why will you
always remember him/her?

Answers for the activities in this book are available from the Penguin Readers website.
A free Activity Worksheet is also available from the website. Activity Worksheets are
part of the Penguin Teacher Support Programme, which also includes Progress Tests
and Graded Reader guidelines. For more information, please visit:
www.penguinreaders.com.
 WORD LIST

ballpoint pen (n) a pen with a very small ball at the end that makes
the ink run smoothly onto paper
beg (v) to ask for something (for example, food, money, or
help) in an urgent way
career (n) a type of job or a profession that you have trained for and
plan to do for a long time
Cheer (v) to shout happily because you like something that has just
happened
Creative (adj) good at thinking of new ideas or ways of
doing things
degree (n) something that a student receives when they successfully
finish a university course
dock (n) a place where heavy things are taken on and off ships
doctorate (n) the highest level of university degree
forge (v) to copy something illegally so that people think it is real
gibberish (n) meaningless language
guidance counselor (n) a person in a school or college who advises
students with personal problems
handkerchief (n) a small piece of cloth used for drying your nose or
eyes
hot dog (n) a long piece of cooked meat in a long piece of bread
hug (v) to put your arms around someone in a friendly way and hold
them tightly
ignore (v) to pay no attention to something or someone
lecturer (n) a teacher at college or university
miserable (adj) very unhappy
monitor (n) a person who watches a situation carefully to make sure
that nothing goes wrong
principal (n) the most important person in a school or college
psychology (n) the scientific study of the mind and how it works
research (n/v) serious, detailed study of a subject to find new
information
respect (n/v) admiration for someone because of their knowledge,
skill, or success
Shoelace (n) a thin piece of string or leather that you use to tie your
shoes
Stadtbibliothek Berlin - Mitte N 1 1 < 0 6 4 9 8 5 7 7 4 5 6

W hen Frank M cC ourt becomes a teacher in N ew York, he finds

himself standing in fro n t o f bored, confused, angry students. W ill
he fail as a teacher? O r can he use his miserable Irish childhood to
help his students? This is the true story o f one man’s surprising,
upsetting, but sometimes very funny experiences in the classroom.
Philipp-Schaeffer-Bibl. (456)
I
Penguin Readers are simplified texts which provide a step-by-step
approach to the joys o f reading for pleasure.

Series Editors: Andy Hopkins and Jocelyn Potter

E a s y s ta rts 200 headwords

L e vel 1 300 headwords Beginner
L e vel 2 600 headwords Elementary
L e vel 3 1200 headwords Pre-Intermediate
Level 4 1700 h e a d w o rd s In te rm e d ia te
L e vel 5 2300 headwords Upper-Intermediate
L e vel 6 3000 headwords Advanced

Contemporary American English

Number o f words (excluding activities): 21,772

C over photograph © W rite r Pictures: Gasper Tringale

Audio C D pack also available

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