November/December 1999

Frank McCourt

Every month, the Harvard Graduate School of Education invites a number of educators, researchers,community activists, and policymakers, from across the country to talk about such topics as school violence, multiple intelligences, teaching science, and the politics of school reform. We are pleased to be able to provide you with an edited transcript of some of these talks.

Below is an edited transcript of a talk that took place at the Harvard Graduate School of Education on September 30, 1999. For easier reading, we have divided the transcript into the following sections:

Introduction by Jerry Murphy, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education
Frank McCourt's Talk
Questions from the Audience
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Jerry Murphy: It is my great pleasure to introduce a person who surely needs no introduction: Frank McCourt. Best known as the author of Angela's Ashes, Frank taught English in various New York City high schools, including Stuyvesant, for some 30 years before, at least in theory, retiring in 1987. And I would say that we are delighted that he has flunked retirement.

A spirited cheerleader of teachers, Frank in a recent interview suggested a Teachers' Hall of Fame to honor the best in the profession. As he put it, what public schoolteachers achieve every day is heroic, and they deserve society's highest esteem. Such ideas speak directly to the heart and soul of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and I know resonate with many of you in the audience.

In his book, Angela’s Ashes, Frank brought to life his childhood in the lanes of Limerick. A best seller since 1996, Angela’s Ashes has been translated into 25 languages and more than five million hard cover copies are currently in print. The movie version will be released at Christmas time.

In his newest book, ‘Tis, Frank paints scenes from the next chapter in his life, which began with his arrival at age 19 in New York City, Frank’s dreamland, with neither money nor a high school education. I'm sure that we are all grateful for another volume of this man's masterful storytelling, his honest depictions of life, and his remarkable sense of humor. Please welcome the one and only Frank McCourt.

Frank McCourt: Thank you, Jerry. It's a fantastic thing to have taught for 30 years in the New York City high school system, then come here and find one of your former students is a doctoral candidate, if you don't mind. I won't take any credit for that. I tried to get a doctorate once at Trinity College in Dublin, but the social life became too complicated. Trinity, you know, was fondly known as a Protestant university. Even when I went there in 1969, it was under a ban from the Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, who forbade Catholics to go there because, you know, it was considered a heathenish place. But I went there anyway. So I suppose I'm excommunicated. I don't know. He's gone and I'm here. (Laughter.)

But I didn't get the Ph.D. I went back to high school, to teach. My experience as a high school teacher was a bit sporadic and strange because I never went to high school myself. I left school in Limerick when I was 14 because there was nothing else to do. I went to what they called a "national school," which was the lowest in the hierarchy of educational establishments. When you went to national school, it was like, I suppose, going into a prison or something. You knew that the national school was the bottom.

We had inherited an English system of education, a Victorian system of education. Kids sitting in rows, just quietly imbibing, memorizing everything. The national school was the school you went to when you grew up in a slum. Now when you went in there, you knew you were never going to go to high school. You'd be out at 14 and you'd get a job or go to England or just knock around or become a thief or something like that. They should have had a sign over the school: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." (Laughter)

So many of the kids were barefoot, their heads were shaved to discourage the lice, there were sores-- if you had a cut, it didn't heal. We didn't have penicillin or anything like that. My grandmother used to say, if I cut myself with a knife or anything, "Don't touch that cut with water. It'll spread." The spreading cut. And everything turned into pus, near gangrene. I don't know how we survived at all.

There are seven masters in Leamy’s National School, and they all have leather straps, canes, black thorn sticks. They hit you with the sticks on the shoulders, the back, the legs, and especially the hands. They hit you if you're late, if you have a leaky nib on your pen, if you laugh, if you talk, if you don't know things.

They hit you if you don't know why God made the world, if you don't know the patron saint of Limerick, if you can't recite the Apostle's Creed, if you can't add 19 to 47, if you can't subtract 19 from 47, if you don't know the chief towns and products of the 32 counties of Ireland, if you can't find Bulgaria on the wall map of the world, that's blotted with spit, snot, and blobs of ink thrown by angry pupils expelled forever. They hit you if you can't say your name in Irish, if you can't say the "Hail Mary" in Irish, if you can't ask for the lavatory pass in Irish. It helps to listen to the big boys ahead of you. They can tell you about the master you have now: what he likes and what he hates. Mr. Benson hates America, and you have to remember to hate America, or he'll hit you. Mr. O'Dee hates England, and you have to remember to hate England, or he'll hit you. If you ever say anything good about Oliver Cromwell, they'll all hit you. (Laughter.)

So this was an education of memorization. We didn't ask questions. If you raised the hand to ask a question, you lost the hand. So we were not encouraged-- there was no spirit of free inquiry. It wasn't education, it was conditioning.

When I became a teacher in New York City, I started in a vocational high school. McKee Vocational on Staten Island. And at that time people told me, "Stay away from vocational high schools."

At that time a movie had come out called The Blackboard Jungle, and that gave you a slight indication of the horrors of a vocational high school. But it was the only job I could get. I dreamed when I started college, and even when I was in Ireland: "Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to be a teacher in America, to be in one of those affluent suburbs like Scarsdale or out in Long Island someplace, and to go in in the morning, and you have all these kids there, and they're all white and clean and their heads never knew a cavity; a cavity wouldn't dare enter their system. And they're all so pure and clean. And I would walk in in my tweed jacket with these patches-- suede patches-- and I would begin to discourse most eloquently on the metaphysical poets. And they'd all sit there scribbling away, and they'd adore me. (Laughter.)

And all the boys were handsome, with blond hair and blue eyes, and perfect teeth, and they were all named "Chuck." (Laughter.) And the girls were always blond and blue-eyed and seductive. But that would be dangerous, of course, me being a teacher. We can't talk about that. But eventually you'd meet some of them in a diner someplace and you'd marry the one that was what I call these long-legged Episcopalians that went to Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr and places like that, those long-legged Episcopalians with apocalyptic bosoms and auburn hair tumbling to their shapely white shoulders. (Laughter.) That's what I wanted. That's what I got. (Laughter.) That's another sad story.

When I came to the States I didn't have any education, as you know, and I was a less than prepossessing individual. I had infected eyes, bad teeth, I was scrawny. And I had no self-esteem. When you come out of circumstances like this, out of poverty, you don't have any self-esteem. Some people get over it very fast. I was talking today about the miracle of two American writers, in particular, James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, who, early in their lives, found their voices and were able to do their work. I couldn't have done that.

My first discovery of a writer who wrote about the working classes and poverty was Sean O'Casey. And I said, "My God, he wrote about the streets of Dublin and these mothers and babies dying." I didn't know you could do that. I didn't know you could write about yourself. Then later on I discovered three African American writers, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Claude Brown, who wrote a book called Manchild in the Promised Land. It was remarkable to me that I had to find three Black American writers to tell me that I could write about myself.

When I arrived in New York, I didn't know what to do with myself. I had no skills. But, I got a job in a place called the Biltmore Hotel. The Biltmore Hotel, some of you may be old enough to know-- it's mentioned often in Scott Fitzgerald, John Cheever, John Updike-- is where the Ivy League boys would meet the Seven Sister girls. That was on Thursdays and Fridays; it was a kind of a pick-up joint and meat market.

And there were the girls from Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore and Radcliffe, and so on. My job in the Biltmore Hotel, in the Palm Court lobby, was to go around with a dustpan and a broom cleaning up, emptying ashtrays, removing wet napkins, swizzle sticks, cleaning up the ashes around, or, when necessary, going into the toilets and scouring them. And I'm feeling angry, because there they are these Ivy Leaguers: they're young; they're my age, about, 19 or 20-- whatever I was at the time.

And they were the golden people; they were the gifted ones. They were the ones that God had blessed. And all they did was go to college up at Harvard and Princeton and places like that. And I'm going around there with my dustpan and my broom, and I'm looking at those long-legged Episcopalian girls and coveting them. That was a sin: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's something-or-other. But I coveted. I coveted everybody, and I did lust. And that's a sin, too.

So here I am, cleaning ashtrays and sinning like a mad man. Committing all the deadly sins. Pride-- that was one, because I was angry. Pride, covetousness. I was coveting-- that's greed. Lust. Oh yes. Anger, yes. Gluttony? No. Envy? Oh yes. And sloth. No, I wasn't committing sloth, because one time when I was in Limerick, when I was in a class, we were preparing for First Communion or First Confession. We would be drilled in the Catechism; we had to memorize the Catechism, the whole Catechism. And I'd answered two questions about the seven deadly sins, and then, emboldened, I raised my little hand-- I was six years of age-- and I said, "Sir, I know the best deadly sin." (Laughter.) "You know the best deadly sin? What is the best deadly sin?" "It's the sloth, sir, because the sloth is the laziness, and the laziness is doing nothing, and that means you can't be committing the other deadly sins." (Laughter.) That was one time I was knocked around the room.

The other time he knocked me around the room was when I had not studied-- memorized-- the Catechism the night before. And if you ever went to a Catholic school, you had to go through this. "Who made the world?" "God." "Who is God?" "God is the Creator, the Sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth and of all things." "Why did God make the world," he asked me. I forgot. I said, "God made the world so we'd all have something to stand on, sir." I was black and blue from that.

So there was a routine. There was a kind of ritual way of teaching. And I think having gone to a place like a national school and having taught in New York City, I think I'm able to compare the two. There was a kind of question/response, question/response in Limerick, and you never, you never, asked a question.

This is a short scene from the time I was in fourth grade. Mr. O'Neill is the master in the fourth class at school. We called him "Dottie" because he's small like a dot. He teaches in the one classroom with a platform above us so that he can stand there and threaten us with his ash pan and peel his apple every day for all to see.

The first day of school in September, he writes on the blackboard three words which are to stay there the rest of the year: "Euclid, geometry, idiot." He says if he catches any boy interfering with these words, that boy will go through the rest of his life with one hand. He says anyone who doesn't understand the theorems of Euclid is an idiot. "Now repeat after me: Anyone who doesn't understand the theorems of Euclid is an idiot." Of course we all know what an idiot is, because that's what the masters keep telling us we are.

Brendan Quigley raises his hand. "Sir, what's a theorem and what's a Euclid?" We expect Dottie O'Neill to lash Brendan the way all the masters do when you ask a question. But he looks at Brendan with a little smile. "Here's a boy with not one, but two questions. What is your name, boy?" "Brendan Quigley, sir." "This is a boy who will go far. Where will he go, boys?" "Far, sir." "Indeed, and he will. The boy who wants to know something about the grace, elegance, and beauty of Euclid can go nowhere but up. In what direction and no other can this boy go, boys?" "Up, sir." "Without Euclid, boys, mathematics would be a poor, doddering thing. Without Euclid we wouldn't be able to go from here to there. Without Euclid, the bicycle would have no wheel. Without Euclid, Saint Joseph could not have been a carpenter. For carpentry is geometry, and geometry is carpentry. Without Euclid, this very school could never have been built."

Paddy Claughercy mutters behind me, "Fecking Euclid." (Laughter.) Dottie barks at him, "You, boy. What is your name?" "Claughercy, sir." "Ah, the boy flies on one wing. What is your Christian name?" "Paddy, sir." "Paddy what?" "Paddy, sir." "And what, Paddy, were you saying to McCourt?" "I said we should get down on our two knees and thank God for Euclid." (Laughter.) "I'm sure you did, Claughercy. I see the lie festering in your teeth. What do I see, boys?" "The lie, sir." "And what is the lie doing, boys?" "Festering, sir." "Where, boys, where?" "In his teeth, sir." "Euclid, boys, was a Greek. What, Claughercy, is a Greek?" "Some class of a foreigner, sir." "Claughercy, you are a half-wit. Now Brendan Quigley, surely you know what a Greek is." "Yes sir. Euclid was a Greek." Dottie gives him the little smile. He tells Claughercy he should model himself on Quigley, who knows what a Greek is. He draws two lines side by side and tells us "These are parallel lines. And the magical and mysterious thing is that they never meet. Not if they were to be extended to infinity, not if they were to be extended to God's shoulders. And that, boys, is a long way."

We listen to Dottie and wonder what all this has to do with the state of the world, with the Germans marching everywhere and bombing everything that stands. We can't ask him ourselves, but we can get Brendan Quigley to do it. Anyone can see Brendan is the master's pet, and that means he can ask any question he likes. After school we tell Brendan that he has to ask the question tomorrow: "What use is Euclid and all those lines that go on forever when the Germans are bombing everything?" Brendan says he doesn't want to be the master's pet. He didn't ask for it, and he doesn't want to ask the question. He's afraid if he asks that question Dottie will attack him. We tell him if he doesn't ask the question we'll attack him. (Laughter.)

Next day Brendan raises his hand. Dottie gives him the little smile. "Sir, what use is Euclid and all the lines when the Germans are bombing everything that stands?" The little smile is gone. "Ah, Brendan, ah Quigley, oh boys, oh boys." He lays his stick on the desk and stands on the platform with his eyes closed. "What use is Euclid? Use? Without Euclid the Messerschmidt could never have taken to the sky. Without Euclid, the Spitfire could not dart from cloud to cloud. Euclid brings us grace and beauty and elegance. What does he bring us, boys?" "Grace, sir, and beauty, sir, and elegance, sir." "Euclid is complete in himself, and divine in application. Do you understand that, boys?" "We do, sir." "I doubt it, boys. I doubt it. To love Euclid is to be alone in this world."

He opens his eyes and sighs. And you could see the eyes were a little watery. So that was it. It was question and response, question and response, memorize everything. No discussion ever. We were not allowed to ask about the Holy Trinity or anything like that.

And when I started teaching in New York and they gave me something called Creative Writing classes, which was a joke, I had to find my way. I had to find my way through everything. I was thrown into this classroom at McKee Vocational Technical High School. I didn't know what to do. Nobody told me what to do as a teacher.

The principal said, in McKee Vocational, "You know," he says, "teaching is 50 percent procedure." I suppose he knew what that meant, but I didn't know what he was talking about. Then I discovered there were rituals and routines and I had to have something called a homeroom class where I was supposed to lead something called the Pledge of Allegiance.

I didn't know the Pledge of Allegiance, the national anthem, or any of this stuff. But I got through. The kids helped me, because the minute I opened my mouth, they'd say, "Yo' teach. You Scotch or something?" (Laughter.) So I'd say, "No, I'm Irish," and they didn't know what that was, and I'd explain it. Because most of the kids in McKee Vocational in Staten Island, most of them were Italian at the time.

I loved taking attendance. I loved calling the roll in the morning, because it sounded like Italian light opera. "Adernalti, Boccacina, Alerbina, da ta da." And they'd say, "You don't have to take the attendance every morning, Mr. McCourt." "But I like it, I like it."

When I went to McKee, I was very nervous, because I only got the job because the teacher who was there quit. And this is my introduction to teaching in New York City.

I got the job mainly because they were desperate. I was very doubtful if I wanted to do it, because I had no experience whatsoever. I was living in Brooklyn, and I had to take the train into Manhattan and then the ferry off to Staten Island, up the hill to McKee Vocational High School. Most of the mornings I was terrified, because the routine was five classes a day. Most people who talk about schools and education, you look at some of those panels on television where they're talking about the terrible state of American education, and usually there's somebody from a corporation, some jerk from a think-tank, or a philosopher. Nobody who'd been in touch with an adolescent in 50 years. But you never see a teacher. When was the last time you saw a teacher talk on Dave Letterman or Jay Leno or anything like that? Teachers are never on talk shows.

But I was thrown into this. I didn't know what to do. I had serious doubts if I could last with my five classes a day, five days a week, 25 classes. I had a friend who was an associate dean at Columbia University. He was a Joyce Scholar. And I was out having a few drinks with him one Tuesday night, and he starts yawning. "Sigh-- ho-huh." I said, "What are you yawning about, Kevin?" "Well," he said, "I have to teach tomorrow." "Tomorrow?" "Wednesday." "What were you doing today?" "Yeah," he says, "I have two classes tomorrow." I said, "You have two classes tomorrow?" "Yeah," he says, "how many do you have?" I said, "Five." He said, "You have five classes tomorrow?" "Yes, Kevin, I had five the day before and I’ll have five tomorrow and I'll have five on Thursday and five on Friday." "Jesus," he said, "how do you do it?" I said, "Because I do it." "How many kids have you got?" I said, "170 kids." "170?" he said. "I have 42." "Oh, Kevin. How do you manage?" (Laughter.)

This was the routine in my early days in a high school classroom. Staten Island, McKee Vocational, when I'm doubting if I'll last. Is this what I'll do the rest of my life? Take the subway, then the ferry, to Staten Island? Climb the hill to McKee Vocational and Technical High School? Punch in at the time clock, extract a bulge of paper from my mailbox, tell my students, class after class, day after day, "Sit down, please. Open your notebooks. Take out your pens. You don't have paper. You don't have a pen? Borrow one. Copy the notes on the board.

You can't see from there? Joy, would you change seats with Bryan? Come on, Joy. Don't be such a-- No, Joy, I didn't call you a jerk. I just asked you to change seats with Bryan, who needs glasses. You don't need glasses, Bryan? Well why do you have to move? Never mind, Joy, just move, will you? Freddie, put that sandwich away. This isn't a lunchroom. I don't care if you're hungry. No, you can't go to the bathroom to eat your sandwich. You're not supposed to be eating sandwiches in the toilet. What is it Maria? You're sick? You have to see the nurse? Okay, here's a pass, Diane. Diane, would you take Maria to the nurse's office and let me know what the nurse says? No, I know they won't tell you what's wrong with her. I just want to know if she'll be coming back to class. What is it Albert? You're sick too? No, you're not, Albert. You just sit there and do your work. You've got to see the nurse, Albert? You're really sick? You have diarrhea? Well, here. Here's the pass to the boy's room. And don't stay there all period. The rest of you, finish copying the notes on the board. There will be a test. You know that, don't you? There will be a test. What's that, Sebastian? Your pen ran out of ink? Well, why didn't you say something? Yes, you're saying it now, but you could have said it ten minutes ago. Oh, you didn't want to interrupt all these sick people. That's nice of you, Sebastian. Does anyone have a pen to loan Sebastian? Oh, come on. What's that, Joy? Sebastian is a what? A what? You shouldn't say things like that, Joy. Sebastian, sit down. No fighting in the classroom. What's that, Ann? You've got to go? Go where, Ann? Oh, you got your period? You're right, Joy, she doesn't have to tell the whole world. Yes, Daniella? You want to take Ann to the bathroom? Why? Oh, she doesn't speak good English. So what does that have to do with her having her… Oh, you can't see either? You want to move up? Okay, move up. Here's an empty seat. But where's your notebook? You left it on the bus? All right. You need paper? Here's paper. You need a pen? Here's a pen. You need to go to the bathroom? Well, go, go, go to the bathroom! Eat a sandwich, hang out with your friends. Jesus!"

"Mr. McCoy?"

"McCourt!"

"You shouldn't swear like that. You shouldn't take God's name like that."

(Applause.)

Going into that teaching profession-- I don't know. Unlike most people who've gone through school in the states-- you go to elementary school and high school and the rest, and you know the routine, you've been in high school-- I didn't know anything about the American teenager.

All I knew about the American teenager was what I'd seen in the movies when I was a kid, that type that I was telling you about, the ones in the suburbs driving up to school, all those Chucks and Amys. And then there was Andy Hardey. All these little suburban houses and everybody was white and clean and mom was there in the kitchen, and she has a nice white apron on. She has hair like a helmet. (Laughter.) And that's all I knew. I didn't know I was going to be thrown into this.

What helped me, I think, was having this accident. When I went to get my license at the Board of Education in New York, I had to take a speech test. And the man at the Speech Bureau, he gave me a passage to read. And I was reading it, and he says, "What's this?" I said, "What's what?" "This foreignism." (Laughter.) I said, "What foreignism?" He said, "You have a definite foreignism." I said, "I'm not a foreigner. I'm Irish." So he says, "This brogue. You'll have to take remedial speech before we can give you a license." So I promised to take it. They got me a temporary substitute license and I vowed I'd take remedial speech, which I never did, because in those days they wanted everybody to sound like George Plimpton. But I never took it.

But the so-called "foreignism" woke the kids. "Oh, what's this?" And then they'd ask me if I was Scotch, and the rest of it. And I think it acted as a bridge, because they looked at me as some kind of exotic [person]. Where did I grow up? Ireland. I had to show it to them on the map. And they had the stereotype. "Oh, Mr. McCoy, you like to drink. Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha." March came: "Well, you going to the Paddy’s Day Parade?" "No, I'll be here." "Oh, you're not going to be up on 5th Avenue puking with all the Irishmen?" (Laughter.) "No, I'm going to be here."

And I would not submit; I would not surrender to the stereotype. I made sure that I was at work on St. Patrick's Day. "Oh, he'll be absent tomorrow and he'll be hung over." No, I was there. And I always made sure, because I was discovering the stuff that was going on, the ethnic stuff and the racial stuff. There was a lot of tension in the various schools I was in. And where I taught, there was a lot of tension between the Hispanic kids and the Chinese kids. A girl from one group dared not go out with the other. It was West Side Story, Romeo and Juliet, all over again. And all of this was new to me. I was learning.

The main thing about adolescents is they're always up to something. They come home. They go up to their room-- -- they don't talk to you. They slam the door. They go, "hrmmph." And this is your little darling (Laughter.) that you're working your ass off to support and send to school. And they go up to their room and then the stereo comes on: Marilyn Manson making the walls shake. "Would you turn down that God-damned stereo?" "What?!" "Turn down the stereo!"

Or the alternative: It’s very quiet up there. (Laughter.) I wonder what he's up to up there. Should I go up and look? You know, he might be sick or something like that. But they might be up there dreaming, which is a rare thing for kids nowadays, with all the stereos and the Internet and everything else. There isn't much time spent daydreaming, just lying on the grass and looking at the clouds. And that's the saddest thing of all.

So this is what I dealt with. All these years I was learning. And this is the story I've written in ‘Tis. I wanted to write Angela’s Ashes mainly to show what poverty was like. Not just the physical aspects of it, but what it does to you emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, any way you like; what it does to you. Because, as I said a few minutes ago, I was always in admiration of people like James Baldwin or Ralph Ellison who got out of it and found their voices early. But I didn't. I don't think I had their intellectual equipment or their artistic gifts, so it took me a long time. And when I arrived here, I was in very sad shape.

There were little things that happened along the way, those little moments, epiphanies, you can call them. This is one. This is a very small thing, but it was a huge turning point in my life.

When I was working at the Biltmore Hotel in the lobby-- this is long before I became a teacher-- going around and cleaning up and looking at those girls and envying everybody, all these people going to college everywhere, this thing happened. The bad days in the lobby are Thursday and Friday when the girls and boys meet and sit and drink and laugh. Nothing on their minds but college and romance. Sailing around in the summer, skiing in the winter, and marrying each other so that they'll have children who'll come to the Biltmore and do the same.

I know they don't even see me in my houseman's uniform with my dustpan and broom, and I'm glad, because there are days my eyes are so red they look bloody. And I dread it when a girl might say, "Excuse me, where's the restroom?" It's hard to point with your dustpan and say, "Over there beyond the elevators," and keep your face turned away at the same time. I tried that with one girl, but she went to the maitre 'd and complained I was rude.

And now I have to look at everyone who asks a question. Or when they stare at me I blush so hard, I'm sure my skin matches my eyes in the redness department. Sometimes I'd blush out of pure anger, and I wanted to snarl at the people who stared. But if I did I'd be fired on the spot. They shouldn't stare. They should know better, the way their mothers and fathers are spending fortunes to make them educated.

And what's the use of all that education if you're so ignorant you stare at people just off the boat with red eyes? You'd think the professors would be standing in front of their classes telling them that, "If you go to the Biltmore Hotel lobby or any lobby, you're not to be staring at people with red eyes or one leg or any class of a disfigurement."

The girls stare anyway, and the boys are worse, the way they look at me and smile and nudge and pass remarks that make everyone laugh. And I'd like to break my dustpan and broom over their heads till blood spurted and they beg me to stop and promise they'll never again pass remarks on anyone's sore eyes. One day there's a yelp from a college girl, and the maitre-'d rushes over. She's crying, and he's moving things around on the table before her and looking under it, shaking his head. He calls across the lobby, "McCourt, get over here right now. Did you clean up around this table?"

"I think I did."

"You think you did? God damn it-- excuse me, miss. Don't you know?"

"I did, sir."

"Did you remove a paper napkin?"

"I cleaned up. I emptied the ash trays."

"A paper napkin that was here. Did you take it?"

"I don't know."

"Well, let me tell you something, McCourt. This young lady here is the daughter of the president of the Traffic Club that rents a huge space in this hotel, and she had a paper napkin with a phone number from a Princeton boy, and if you don't find that piece of paper, your ass is in hot water. Now what did you do with the trash you took away?"

"It's gone down to the big garbage bins near the kitchen."

"All right. Go down there and search for that paper napkin, and don't come back without it."

The girl who lost the napkin sobs and tells me her father has a lot of influence here, and she wouldn't want to be me if I don't find that piece of paper. Her friends are looking at me, and I feel my face is on fire with my eyes. The maitre-'d snaps at me, "Go get it, McCourt and report back here."

The garbage bins by the kitchen are overflowing and I don't know how I'm going to find a small piece of paper lost in all that waste: coffee grounds, bits of towels, fish bones, egg shells, grapefruit skins. I'm on my knees poking and separating with a fork from the kitchen, wondering what I’m doing there?

I find a clean paper napkin, write a made-up phone number on it, stain it with coffee, hand it to the maitre-'d, who hands it to the girl, with her friends cheering on all sides. She thanks the maitre-'d and passes him a tip, a whole dollar. And my only sorrow is that I won't be there when she calls that number. (Laughter.)

I think maybe that was the moment that I began to emerge from victimhood, began to make decisions like this. Not to take it anymore. Not to take humiliation.

And I stayed in that hotel for a year-and-a-half. Then I was rescued from the hotel by Mao Tse-tung. He sent his forces into Korea and America got nervous and turned to me, and drafted me, and sent me, not to Korea, but to Germany, where as soon as I arrived they put me into the dog training core, the Canine Corps.

I said to the captain-- you know, I was Irish, so we like animals. Everybody from Ireland's just off a farm, surrounded by cows and sheep and everything. And I hated dogs, because I spent two years delivering telegrams, and my ankles were chewed off. So I said to the captain, "Sir, I don't like dogs." "Who asked ya?" So I was put into the Canine Corps. Then they took me from that and the company clerk was coming back to the States, and they sent me to company clerk school where I learned to type. And that stood me in good stead when I came back and I went to college.

I went to college because of the G.I. bill, which saved my life, even though I didn't have the high school diploma, I went down to NYU. I was working on the docks, and we got off early one day, and I walked up Hudson Street, and there was a bar there where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death: The White Horse Tavern. And I used to go in there because I lived in the neighborhood.

And I was having a knockwurst and a stein of beer, and I engaged in something no young Irishman should do. I began to ask myself the meaning of it all. (Laughter.) And I wasn't equipped to deal with that. So I just left my half a knockwurst and half my stein of beer and stalked out of the bar. I didn't know where I was going.

I walked across Bleeker Street to Washington Square, and there was NYU. And I asked somebody, "Is there an admissions office?" I went in, and filled out the form, but when it came to that line, "high school"-- "name of high school, year graduated"-- they were amused that I didn't fill it in. And I said, "I never went to high school." They thought it was hilarious that I was applying for NYU without a high school education.

But I think I was desperate-- I was really very shy, timid, tentative, because I was frightened. But I was so desperate that day, I started telling them about all the books that I've read. And one of them, I think, opened the doors of NYU: I said, "Dostoyevsky." That's all you have to say. (Laughter.) You can get into any college in the country. Just say "Dostoyevsky." "My, my, my, you read Dostoyevsky?" And I also said I read Herman Melville. "Oh, you read Herman Melville?" Did you like Moby Dick? I said, "It wasn't Moby Dick. I read something else. A book they'd never heard of called Pierre, or the Ambiguities. If you want to bore someone, give them Pierre, or the Ambiguities. It's one of the worst novels. This is Melville regarding himself as a philosopher.

But they were very impressed by that and they let me in. And so I spent my four years at NYU, again, in the state of envy, because I'd go into the students' cafeteria, and at that time everybody sat around in a state of despair, because they were all reading Camus and Jean Paul Sartre, and they were all in a state of existential despair, and wondering was it all worthwhile, and should they go out and commit suicide today? And I was trying to comprehend this. All they have to do is go to college and they're sitting around contemplating suicide. But they'd go home to dinner instead. (Laughter.)

So then I became a teacher. I worked at the bank for awhile, at nighttime, in the personal loan department. And when I was graduating from college, one of the executives there said-- he used corporate lingo with me-- he said, "Why don't you come aboard." I didn't know what he was talking about. I thought he was inviting me to his yacht or something. (Laughter.)

So then I realized he was inviting me to become a member of Manufacturer's Trust Company. But I didn't see myself going in from 9:00 to 5:00 every day. And the teaching-- the combination of kids and books-- was what lured me into teaching. I knew I'd never be driving a BMW or a Cadillac-- the teaching salary was appalling at the time. I went into teaching at a yearly salary of $4,800, in the late fifties. And I could barely get by, but then we formed the union, and we went striking about, and I was very active in that. But that was my career, 30 years in the classroom, where the kids thought I was teaching.

I thought I was teaching. I was learning, for the 30 years. I learned something about literature, I learned something about writing, I learned something about them. But most of all, I learned something about the human heart. And at Stuyvesant High School they would ask me about my growing up in Ireland. When I went to Stuyvesant, the student population was about 80 percent Jewish, and they'd ask me about growing up in Ireland and I'd tell them some of the stories that are in Angela’s Ashes, and they'd say, "Oh, you should write a book. You should write a book." And I do what I'm told, so I wrote a book.

Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

Audience: Did you see changes in the classroom environment in the United States in terms of this business of asking questions

McCourt: Did I see changes in the classroom in the sense-- did the kids ask-- were they more open, asking questions? No. I didn't see much of a change. The kids were always open. The atmosphere in the American classroom was much different from what it was in Ireland.

But the big change, I think, in the schools, was drugs. When I first started teaching there were gangs and there was violence and rivalries, and so on. But then in the '60s-- and it's all Allen Ginsberg's fault (Laughter.)-- the drugs came in and nobody really trained us; nobody told us what to look for in the classroom for kids. And I saw kids spaced out, stoned, who would go out to lunch and come back and they’d look out the window and it would irritate me. But then I began to realize that-- as I did earlier with kids-- that they were having their own problems. And I had to keep learning. But that was the main thing.

Teaching is hard enough, but when you have to become a drug counselor on top of it, or become a drug expert, that made it much, much harder, especially at Stuyvesant High School, where they were very sophisticated in the chemistry lab. You never knew what they were going to come up with.

But I like the give and take of the classroom. Some teachers are very rigid about keeping your hands down till the end of the period. We were told by the Board of Education that we had to make lesson plans. And there was a form. First of all, you had to motivate the kids, because it is understood they don't want to learn at all, and it's up to you to motivate them. "Okay, listen or you'll fail." That's the motivation. (Laughter.)

And then there was an aim. You had to write an aim on the board. "Aim"-- with a colon-- to get through this period. And then you had to have what they called Pivotal Questions. You had to have enough pivotal questions to cover the period. Halfway through you had to have something called "media summary," which has now changed; the jargon has changed to "renovation." They're gone, with the drugs; they're stoned. And you have to motivate them all over again.

Then you come to the end and you have to have the "Summary." Then you have to have "Enhancement" and "Enrichment." And then that dreaded thing called homework. So that was the form, which I was never able to follow.

There was one teacher in Stuyvesant, she was a demon for the lesson plan. She had all these lesson plans. And she called me a ham one day. Well, she went bonkers, and now she's in Westchester County raising 10,000 tulips, and they don't talk back. That's the answer to your question

Audience: What would be your ideal school? If you could change schools, how we teach kids, what would you do? Especially if the kids were underprivileged

McCourt: I think you have to dig deep to ask yourself, "What the hell am I doing in this classroom?" And the so-called underprivileged kids are wise in the ways of the world. They have street knowledge that other kids don't have. So this is something I had to realize: how smart they were, in ways that were beyond me.

But I think the teacher-- I had to discover-- I had to say to myself, "What am I doing in this classroom?" And I think I created a little equation for myself. I was writing on the board at the beginning of the term, "F" and then an arrow: "From fear to freedom." We never completely achieve freedom, you know, but this is the movement.

And then I used to mention things at faculty meetings, and they would say, "Oh, there he goes again." I'd say-- they talk about SATs and colleges and scores and so on-- I'd say, "Well, what about the pursuit of wisdom?" And I was serious, for once in my life. "What about the pursuit of wisdom? Socrates under the tree with the young men of Athens. What about that?" "Oh, there he goes again." They had practical matters to attend to, like the PSATs and the SATs and averages and applications to the various colleges.

So real education was lost sight of. The pursuit of knowledge and the providence of the spirit of independent and critical inquiry. That was lost sight of. And I think what the most appalling part of it was the multiple-choice question. I think it's up there next to Nazism in the evils of the world. (Laughter.) And the wire hanger. And yogurt with fruit at the bottom. (Laughter.)

So I'd like to have a school where you'd discuss, "What the hell are we doing here with the kids?" and draw them into it, because usually it's a teacher up here with the inference of power: the podium, the microphone, the chalk, the eraser, and the red pen, the red pen, the red pen, and the grade. As long as that goes on I don't know how education can flourish in a system like that. And it's getting worse with these tests, and fingers are being pointed at various states: California came in second from the bottom. New York is only halfway. Then Connecticut, which has more money than God, comes in at the top. (Laughter.) That kind of expectation, I think, has to be abolished.

Audience: What was it that you think enabled you to survive poverty

McCourt: I think in the slums, as in the Army, you'll find people have a sense of humor. That's what kept us going. Not like those-- you know those long Russian novels that go on for 942 pages and on page 941 Boris the serf decides to commit suicide? (Laughter.) And you'll wish he'd done it on page 9. (Laughter.) When you're in the slums-- they're called ghettos now, but I still think they were slums-- we, as kids, and even the adults-- we mocked and imitated everybody: the bureaucrats, schoolmasters, priests, government officials, these officials of the St. Vincent de Paul Society who gave us charity. That kept us going. That and storytelling. We didn't have television or radio. We didn't have anything. We didn't even have electricity.

So whatever we had came from us, and in a sense our lives were very rich. We were in the streets. We never wanted to go home. I hated twilight, because then the mothers would stand at the doors, "Sean, Michael, Paddy, come in." "Maureen, Sheila, come in, come in, come in. If I have to call you again-- if I have to call you once more, I'll tear the countenance from the front of your head." And this would go on, and this was a kind of an evening ritual. That kind of thing kept us going. And then going home and sitting around talking about what we did all day.

And all of our talk concerned what we did, what we experienced, and not what was on television last night. And then in addition to that, there was the dream of getting out of that lane. That's strong, because I knew some day I'd get to America, by hook or by crook. A lot of people would-- a lot of the kids would go to England or Australia. But we were getting out. We knew it. And that's what kept us going.

Audience: I'm just wondering if you intend to continue pursuing these ideas about public schools and teaching in public schools and the heroism of your colleagues in your work?

McCourt: Well, the more I'm retired, so to speak, the more intriguing teaching is to me. But what goes on in the classroom is like what goes on in a marriage: it’s a big mystery. In the long run, you say, "What the hell went on in that marriage?" Because I've been married three times now, and I'm finished. I don't have the energy. But I look back on-- I'm making notes now about my years in the classroom about successful things I did in the classroom, and my failures. You know, the failure in the classroom is like the bad review you get, the one that sticks in your craw.

I remember one class, and I could do nothing with them. I did everything: soft-shoe dance, everything. I promised them the world. But I couldn't get through to them. And I keep thinking about that. But of all the classes-- and I estimate that I've taught 33,000 lessons to 11,000 students-- and this is what I did for 30 years. And as I've said about Angela’s Ashes, I was given that poverty, those adverse circumstances, and a certain way, maybe, with language so that I could take the language and write about the experience. And now I'll continue with the teaching, because I think it's simply the most significant activity in America, the teaching. (Applause.

Audience: Ho do you keep from burning out as many teachers do

McCourt: Now, it's hard dealing with teenagers. They're very tough. As I've said repeatedly, they look at you and they're experts, they're master psychologists when it comes to teachers. They've been at it for years. (Laughter.) They have graduate degrees in teacher psych, and they know you. They spot you. They know if you're going to be easy, if you're going to be a softie. And they're like heat-seeking missiles. (Laughter.) If you show the slightest vulnerability, they're zooming in on you, and they'll drive you out.

The Latin teacher at Stuyvesant High School came in one day and he just sat down at his desk and burst into tears, and they led him away. I think he couldn't do it. But I thought that, in my case, it was challenging, and I kept trying new things, tried to keep it fresh. Because they're fresh. They're alive. And they have such energy, you'd better have enough energy to deal with their energy, because they'll suck it out of you. And you have to find ways of dancing your dance with them in the classroom. And I told them, in the 11th or 12th year of my career-- "I come into this school every day. I have to enjoy myself, and you'd better help me enjoy myself or you're doomed." And I said to myself, "If I don't enjoy it, if I don't enjoy going into the classroom, if I don't enjoy the give and take, then I might as well quit and become a CEO." (Laughter.)

Audience: What advice would you give to a new teacher

McCourt: Well, it depends on the school. If you were to go into Stuyvesant High School, you're walking into paradise. But it's challenging, because they'll keep you on your toes. If you're going into the so-called inner-city high schools, where the so-called underprivileged kids-- that's another story. I think you have to get their stories. Oh yeah. What succeeded for me-- and I stumbled onto everything because I don't have this giant intellect; everything I did, I stumbled onto-- I wanted them to love poetry. They resisted it. They resist two things: poetry and grammar. But the hell with grammar; I wanted them to love poetry. So my way of doing it was to go back to their childhood, and say, "What did you chant when you were on the street? Ring-a-ring-a-rosy and Miss Lucy, na na na-- " And all the girls in the class, "Ne ne ne na na na," interspersed with obscene lyrics.

And then I brought in Irish songs, and we'd sing. Every Thursday we sang. You see these Korean kids singing "The Rocky Road to Dublin" and-- (Laughter.) And then in my sneaky way, I would ease them into chanting-- recitations of something–like "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and "Dangerous Dan McGoo." And we'd chant.

And other sneaky stuff to get them to chant: Dylan Thomas. And never mind the meaning. This is the thing that drives kids crazy. English teachers probing and analyzing with these intellectual forceps. Just leave the poem alone. (Laughter.)

My favorite nursery rhyme was "Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep, Doesn't know where to find them. Leave them alone and they will come home, Wagging their tails behind them." You can't force those little sheep to come home. They'll come home in their own good bloody time.

And it was the same way with the poetry: leave it alone. And they said, "McCourt-- " And I'd say, "Well, what happened to you when you read this poem?" I wouldn't say, "What was the meaning? What happened?" "BORING." "Okay. All right. We'll move on. Is that all right? Yeah, you think it's boring. Okay. We'll move on." "But is it all right with you that I think it's boring?" "Yeah, it's all right. You're not ready for it. You're not ready for this poem, unless everybody's stupid." (Laughter.) Of course I'd say that jokingly.

And they'd come from other English classes where they're doing-- -- as they say-- Gerard Manley Hopkins. And they're looking puzzled. I love the atmosphere in the hallways at the end of the class, at the end when the bell rang. Every spring we used to do Hamlet. Do Hamlet; you can't teach it. We'd read it and discuss it.

And across the hall where was the chairman of the math department, Mr. Marcantoni, who's a great teacher, and an enthusiastic teacher of mathematics. We'd be in there talking about Hamlet, and, for instance, why was Hamlet mean to Ophelia? "Why didn't he act sooner?" the kids would always say. "Why was Hamlet mean to Polonius and what were his problems?" And then there's a kind of a dramatic attention in the class when you're doing something like that. The warning bell rings five minutes before the end of the period, and the tension increases because the teacher now is supposed to bring it all together and explain why Hamlet was the way he was, and we're getting close to the final bell.

"Mr. McCourt, why was he mean to Ophelia?" I said, "Now, what do you think? Why do you think?" "Well now, but you're the teacher." "But I don't know. I don't know. Shakespeare knew." And they know the bell is going to ring, and they're all anxious, and the bell rings. "You didn't tell us." I said, "Well, think about it. Go home and ask your mother."

And in the math class-- a problem is written on the board at the beginning of the class. And Mr. Marcantoni moves toward what mathematicians call an elegant solution. They love that. And they move along, and this excitement-- the intellectual excitement. But they know when the warning bell rings, they and Mr. Marcantoni are going to the solution together. They'll join in this great discovery. And when the final bell rings, there's a sigh of relief. Now they all know the answer.

So you see the kids coming out of the Hamlet class and the kids coming out of the mathematics class. Bewildered kids from the English classes. Disgruntled and vowing revenge on the teacher. And the satisfied mathematics kids. So I like to leave them confused, because that's the way I was myself. (Laughter.) Thank you very much. (Applause.)