Teacher Man: A Memoir (7 page)

Eddie’s clipboard was on the desk. It still held the manifest from Fat Dominic. A red pencil hung by a string from the clip. A coffee mug half filled with black coffee sat on the desk. The coffee mug said
EDDIE
on the side. I thought I’d have to get a mug like that with
FRANK
printed on it. Helena would know where to buy it. It gave me a feeling of comfort to think she might be there to help. She said, What are you waiting for? Write the note. I looked at Eddie’s coffee mug again. I looked out at the platform where he had fallen and died and I could not write the note. Helena said this was the opportunity of a lifetime. I’d make a hundred dollars a week, f’Gawd’s sakes, up from the lousy seventy-seven I made now.

No, I could never take Eddie’s place on that platform, didn’t have his generosity of belly and heart. Helena said, OK, OK, you’re right. What’s the use of a college education you just gonna stand on the platform checking off sacks of peppers? Any dropout can do that, no offense to Eddie. You wanna be another Eddie? Spend your life checking Fat Dominic? You just go be a teacher, honey. You’ll get more respect.

Was it the coffee mug and the little push from Helena that got me off the waterfront and into the classroom or was it my conscience telling me, Face it, stop hiding and teach, man?

When I told stories about the docks they looked at me in a different way. One boy said it was funny to think you had a teacher up there that worked like real people and didn’t come from college just talking about books and all. He used to think he’d like to work on the piers, too, because of all the money you make on overtime and little deals here and there with the dropped broken goods but his father said he’d break his ass, ha ha, and you didn’t talk back to your father in an Italian family. His father said, If this Irishman can get to be a teacher, so can you, Ronnie, so can you. So forget the docks. You might make money but what good is that when you can’t straighten your back?

L
ong after my teaching days I scribble numbers on pieces of paper, and I’m impressed by what they mean. In New York I taught in five different high schools and one college: McKee Vocational and Technical High School, Staten Island; the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan; Seward Park High School in Manhattan; Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan; night classes at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan; New York Community College in Brooklyn. I taught by day, by night, and in summer school. My arithmetic tells me that about twelve thousand boys and girls, men and women, sat at desks and listened to me lecture, chant, encourage, ramble, sing, declaim, recite, preach, dry up. I think of the twelve thousand and wonder what I did for them. Then I think of what they did for me.

The arithmetic tells me I conducted at least thirty-three thousand classes.

Thirty-three thousand classes in thirty years: days, nights, summers.

In universities you can lecture from your old crumbling notes. In public high schools you’d never get away with it. American teenagers are experts in the tricks of teachers, and if you try to hoodwink them they’ll bring you down.

So, yo, teacher man, what else happened in Ireland?

I can’t talk about that now. We have to cover the vocabulary chapter in the textbook. Open to page seventy-two.

Aw, man, you tell the other classes stories. Can’t you tell us just one little thing?

OK, one little thing. When I was a boy in Limerick I never thought I’d grow up to be a teacher in New York. We were poor.

Oh, yeah. We heard you didn’t have no refrigerator.

Right, and we had no toilet paper.

What? No toilet paper? Everybody has toilet paper. Even in China where everybody’s starving they have toilet paper. Even in Africa.

They think I’m exaggerating and they don’t like it. There’s a limit to hard-luck stories.

You tryin’ to tell us you’d go an’ pull up your pants and not wipe yourself?

Nancy Castigliano raises her hand. Excuse me, Mr. McCourt. It’s nearly lunchtime, and I don’t wanna hear no more about people having no toilet paper.

OK, Nancy, we’ll move on.

Facing dozens of teenagers every day brings you down to earth. At eight a.m. they don’t care how you feel. You think of the day ahead: five classes, up to one hundred and seventy-five American adolescents; moody, hungry, in love, anxious, horny, energetic, challenging. No escape. There they are and there you are with your headache, your indigestion, echoes of your quarrel with your spouse, lover, landlord, your pain-in-the-ass son who wants to be Elvis, who appreciates nothing you do for him. You couldn’t sleep last night. You still have that bag filled with the papers of the one hundred and seventy-five students, their so-called compositions, careless scrawls. Oh, mister, did you read my paper? Not that they care. Writing compositions is not how they intend to spend the rest of their lives. That’s something you do only in this boring class. They’re looking at you. You cannot hide. They’re waiting. What are we doing today, teacher? The paragraph? Oh, yeah. Hey, everybody, we gonna study the paragraph, the structure, topic sentence an’ all. Can’t wait to tell my mom tonight. She’s always asking how was school today. Paragraphs, Mom. Teacher has a thing about paragraphs. Mom’ll say, Very nice, and go back to her soap opera.

They straggle in from auto mechanics shop, the real world, where they break down and reassemble everything from Volkswagens to Cadillacs, and here’s this teacher going on about the parts of a paragraph. Jesus, man. You don’t need paragraphs in an auto shop.

If you bark or snap, you lose them. That’s what they get from parents and the schools in general, the bark and the snap. If they strike back with the silent treatment, you’re finished in the classroom. Their faces change and they have a way of deadening their eyes. Tell them open their notebooks. They stare. They take their time. Yeah, they’ll open their notebooks. Yes, sir, here we go opening our notebooks nice and easy so nothing falls out. Tell them copy what’s on the board. They stare. Oh, yeah, they tell one another. He wants us to copy what’s on the board. Look at that. Man wrote something on the board and wants us to copy it. They shake their heads in slow motion. You ask, Are there any questions? and all around the room there is the innocent look. You stand and wait. They know it’s a forty-minute showdown, you versus them, thirty-four New York teenagers, the future mechanics and craftsmen of America.

You’re just another teacher, man, so what are you gonna do? Stare down the whole class? Fail the whole class? Get with it, baby. They have you by the balls and you created the situation, man. You didn’t have to talk to them like that. They don’t care about your mood, your headache, your troubles. They have their own problems, and you are one of them.

Watch your step, teacher. Don’t make yourself a problem. They’ll cut you down.

Rain changes the mood of the school, mutes everything. The first class comes in silently. One or two say good morning. They shake drops from their jackets. They’re in a dream state. They sit and wait. No one talks. No requests for the pass. No complaints, no challenges, no back talk. Rain is magic. Rain is king. Go with it, teacher man. Take your time. Lower your voice. Don’t even think about teaching English. Forget about taking attendance. This is the mood of a house after a funeral. No harsh headlines today, no cruel news from Vietnam. Outside the room a footfall, a laugh from a teacher. Rain clatters against windows. Sit at your desk and let the hour slip by. A girl raises her hand. She says, Aw, Mr. McCourt, you ever in love? You’re new but you know already when they ask questions like that they’re thinking of themselves. You say, Yes.

Did she give you up or did you give her up?

Both.

Oh, yeah? You mean you were in love more than once?

Yes.

Wow.

A boy raises his hand. He says, Why can’t teachers treat us like human beings?

You don’t know. Well, man, if you don’t know, tell them, I don’t know. Tell them about school in Ireland. You went to school in a state of terror. You hated it and dreamed of being fourteen and getting a job. You never thought about your own school days like this before, never talked about it. You wish this rain would never stop. They’re in their seats. No one had to tell them hang up their jackets. They’re looking at you as if they had just discovered you.

It should rain every day.

Or there are spring days when heavy clothing is discarded and each class is a vista of breasts and biceps. Little zephyrs wafting through the windows caress the cheeks of teachers and students, send smiles from desk to desk, from row to row till the room is all adazzle. Pigeon coo and sparrow chirp tell us be of good cheer, summer is a-comin’ in. Those shameless pigeons, indifferent to the teen throb in my room, copulate on the windowsill and that is more seductive than the best lesson by the greatest teacher in the world.

On days like this I feel I could teach the toughest of the tough, the brightest of the bright. I could hug and cocker the saddest of the sad.

On days like this there is background music with hints of zephyr, breast, biceps, smile and summer.

And if my students ever wrote like that I’d send them to Simplicity School.

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 faring. Teachers sat in classrooms talking to parents or listening to their complaints. Most visiting parents were mothers because that was the job of the woman. If the mother found her son or daughter was misbehaving or not performing well then it would be up to the father to take steps. Of course the father would take steps only with the son. The daughter was a matter for the mother. It wouldn’t be right for a father to knock his daughter around the kitchen or tell her she was grounded for a month. Certain problems belonged to the mother. Also, they had to decide on how much information to give the father. If the son was doing poorly and she had a violent husband she might soften her story so that her boy would not wind up on the floor with blood streaming from his nose.

Sometimes a whole family might come to visit the teacher and the room would be packed with fathers and mothers and small children running up and down the aisles. The women talked to one another in a friendly way, but the men sat quietly at desks that could barely accommodate their size.

No one ever told me how to handle parents on Open School Day. My first time at McKee, I had a student monitor, Norma, who gave out numbers so that parents would know who was next.

First, I had to deal with the problem of my accent, especially with the women. As soon as I opened my mouth they’d say, Oh, my God, what a cute brogue. Then they’d tell me how their grandparents came from the Old Country, how they came here with nothing and now owned their own gas station out in New Dorp. They wanted to know how long I was in this country and how I got into teaching. They said it was wunnerful I was a teacher because most of our people were cops and priests and they’d whisper there were too many Jews in the school. They’d send their kids to Catholic schools except that Catholic schools were not known for vocational or technical training. It was all history and prayers, which was all right for the next world, but their kids had to think about this world. No disrespect intended. Finally, they’d ask how was he doing, their little Harry?

I had to be careful if the dad was sitting there. If I made negative comments about Harry the dad might go home and punch him and word would get out to my other students that I was not to be trusted. I was learning that teachers and kids have to stick together in the face of parents, supervisors and the world in general.

I said positive things about all my students. They were attentive, punctual, considerate, eager to learn and every one of them had a bright future and the parents should be proud. Dad and Mom would look at each other and smile and say, See? or they’d be puzzled and say, You talkin’ about our kid? Our Harry?

Oh, yes. Harry.

Does he behave himself in class? Is he respectful?

Oh, yes. He contributes to all our discussions.

Oh, yeah? That’s not the Harry we know. He must be different in school because at home he’s a regular little shit, excuse the language. Home we can’t get a word out of him. Can’t get him to do nothing. All he wants is to sit an’ listen to that goddam rock ’n’ roll day an’ night, day an’ goddam night.

The dad was vehement. It’s the worst thing ever happened to this country with that Elvis shakin’ his ass all over television, excuse the language. I’d hate to have a daughter in this day and age watching that crap. Got a good mind to throw that phonograph in the garbage. I’d dump the TV, too, but I gotta have a little relaxation the end of a day on the piers, know what I mean?

Other parents became impatient and inquired, sarcastically polite, if there was a possibility I could get away from discussions of Elvis Presley and talk to them about their sons and daughters. Harry’s parents informed them it was their turn to see about their kid. It was a free country, last they’d heard, and they weren’t gonna be cut off in the middle of their interview with this nice teacher from the Old Country.

But the other parents said, Yeah, yeah, teacher. Hurry it up. We don’t got all night. We’re working people, too.

I didn’t know what to do. I thought if I said thank you to the parents at the desk they might get the hint and go but the vehement dad said, Hey, we’re not finished.

Norma, my student monitor, understood my dilemma and took charge. She announced to the parents that if they wanted longer interviews with me they could make appointments to see me on a series of afternoons.

I never told Norma any such thing. I didn’t want to spend my life in that classroom, day after day, with disgruntled parents, but she went calmly on, passed around a sheet of paper, told the disgruntled ones to print, please print, don’t write, their names and phone numbers and Mr. McCourt would be in touch.

The rumbling subsided and everyone complimented Norma on her efficiency and told her she should be a teacher herself. She told them she had no intention of being a teacher. Her big dream was to work in a travel agency and get free tickets everywhere. One mother said, Oh, don’t you wanna settle down and have kids? You’d be a great mother.

Then Norma said the wrong thing and tension was back in the room. No, she said, I don’t want kids. Kids are a pain. You have to change their diapers and then come to school to see how they’re doing and you’re never free.

She wasn’t supposed to talk like that and you could feel the hostility toward her rising in the room. A few minutes ago parents were complimenting her on her efficiency and now they felt insulted by her remarks on parenthood and kids. One father tore up the sheet of paper she’d handed out for names and phone numbers. He threw it toward the front of the room where I sat. Hey, he said, somebody dump that in the garbage. He picked up his coat and told his wife, Let’s get outa here. This place is a nuthouse. His wife barked at me, Don’t you have no control over these kids? This one was my daughter I’d break her face. She got no right to insult the mothers of America like that.

My face felt like a fire. 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 coolly saying goodnight to the parents who left, ignoring the way they glared at her. Now what was I supposed to do? Where was the book by a professor of education that would 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, that was a dumb thing I said and I’m so sorry. It wasn’t Mr. McCourt’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 shoulda kept my mouth shut because I got him in trouble and I’m sorry.

Then she began to cry and a number of mothers rushed to comfort 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 that group of comforting mothers and I didn’t know if I should act independently and say, Next? The parents seemed more interested in Norma’s plight than in the future of their own children, and when the bell rang to signal the end of the meetings, they smiled and left saying it was nice, this visit with me, and good luck in my teaching career.