Teacher Man

McCourt then gets a job at the high school his wife works for, Seward Park, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. McCourt describes the school population as diverse: “This was a melting-pot school: Jewish, Chinese, Puerto Rican, Greek, Dominican, Russian, Italian, and I had no preparation or training for teaching English as a Second Language,” he writes (129). He notes how he was just like them not so long before—confused, feeling out of place in American society—and thinks he can relate to them.

One student, Nancy Chu, is from China and learned English from the movies of Fred Astaire. She wants to be an English teacher herself and asks him questions in class, prompting a story about his first teaching experience. Before he became a teacher, he worked in a hotel, and the Puerto Rican workers in the kitchen paid him to teach them words related to food preparation. Nancy, in turn, tells the class about her mother’s favorite poet, Li Po, who died by falling into a lake when he was so moved by the beauty of the moon’s reflection in the water that he reached out to embrace it. McCourt notes how the students leave slowly, rather than rush out as usual, when the bell rings.

One 9th grade English class is made up of 29 Black girls and 2 Puerto Rican boys. The leader of the girls is Serena, who is outspoken and mature. The students convince McCourt to take them to the movies, like other classes did, so one day they take a field trip to the cinema. They catch people’s attention wherever they go—on the street, in the subway, and in the theater. As they watch the movie Cold Turkey, they make so much noise that the ushers repeatedly threaten to call the management. McCourt feels both helpless and defensive, knowing that they are teenagers full of energy, but also wanting to maintain order. “I want to be here when management comes,” he thinks to himself. “I want to see management handle them” (141). The students don’t leave when the movie ends, staying to watch it again while he departs alone.

After that, they want more field trips. They hear that other classes are going to see a play and ask McCourt if they can go to one too. McCourt has recently seen a notice about a college production of Hamlet and thinks it will be too difficult for them to understand. He tells them the language is difficult, but they still want to go and he signs up for the trip. The girls enjoy themselves while the two boys sit far apart from them, intimidated. Serena and the others especially like the ghost character, who they think is cute until he removes his costume after the play. Upon noticing that he is just an ordinary man, they feel tricked. They vow not to go to the theater again.

Not long afterward, Serena stops coming to class. The other girls inform McCourt that her mother was arrested on drug charges and on her way to jail, so Serena went to live with her grandmother in Georgia. Without her presence, he feels that he starts to connect with the class better. They ask him questions about his life that he is more free to answer now that Serena is not there competing for the class’s attention. A month later, one of the girls says Serena sent her a letter to say that she has decided to go to college and become a teacher of little children. Serena also tells her friend to let McCourt know she feels sorry for things she did in class and someday she will write him a letter. The chapter ends here, with McCourt writing, “There were fireworks in my head. It was New Year’s Eve and the Fourth of July a hundred times over” (146).

This chapter is mainly about McCourt’s last year at Seward Park and his time as a PhD candidate at Trinity College in Dublin. After 10 years of teaching, McCourt wishes he could be a more authoritative teacher. Some teachers do have that authority, but he’s more pliable, and the students know it. However, McCourt observes that teachers learn things over time, and can predict certain issues with some experience. They can tell which students may become difficult. As he writes, “In every class there’s a pest put on earth to test you” (149).

He tells the story of Andrew, who sits in the back and tilts his chair against the wall. Tilting chairs is against the rules since students could get hurt if they slip. McCourt and Andrew have a confrontation about it, as the student won’t comply. Finally, Diane, another student, walks over and yells at Andrew, telling him to stop acting like a first grader. Andrew puts the chair down. McCourt wants to reprimand Andrew, but chooses to make it a part of the lesson, asking the class what a newspaper reporter might write if he or she had just come in to observe. He notes they’ve just had a conflict, necessary for any story, and points out the different dimensions the tale could take. The next day, Andrew stays after class. He tells McCourt that his mother knew him at New York University. Her name was June Somers—from McCourt’s education class with Norm. She died of cancer the previous year, and now Andrew is moving to Chicago with his stepfather. They shake hands and say goodbye.

Another confrontation in class occurs with a student known as Benny “Boom Boom” Brand, a student with a black belt in karate. Benny comes in late one day, after missing four consecutive days. McCourt asks him if he has a pass from the office, which is needed after an absence. Benny replies defiantly, asking who can stop him, and McCourt says he will. He tosses his chalk in the air a few times, but then drops it. He feels pressure to act and show strength in front of the students, so when he bends to pick up the chalk, he grabs Benny’s leg and flips him to the floor. He waits for Benny to respond, but the student just sits down. McCourt feels ashamed; he wants to apologize but doesn’t. Later Benny tells McCourt that he learned humility from karate, so he accepted the situation in class because it meant more to McCourt than to him, as teachers must maintain authority.

McCourt’s wife suggests he get his PhD and urges him to go abroad for it. He’s accepted at Trinity College in Dublin, an institution that has loomed large in his psyche. When he lived in Ireland as a child, Trinity represented a great Protestant upper-class enclave in the heart of poor, Catholic territory. As a teen he was too scared to enter its gates. When he was in the U.S. army several years later, he visited the city in his uniform with the intention of going to Trinity with the confidence of an American. No one gave him respect, however, as soon as they heard him talk and knew that he was one of them. He met a waitress named Mary at a restaurant, and they agreed to meet later for a drink. She was not attractive to him, and though he didn’t want to be seen at Trinity with her, he was unable to refuse her. After they leave Trinity, he simply ran off. The next day he went to the restaurant to apologize, and they ended up at her place after her shift. Again, he didn’t really want to be with her, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak up and say no, so they spent the night together.

McCourt feels vindicated and more confident after being accepted at Trinity for his doctoral studies. He travels there from New York on the ship Queen Elizabeth, and meets a woman on board with whom he spends the first few nights. After they part, he sees her with a rich older American and feels inferior. On the ship, he has time to take stock of his life, lamenting that he never single-mindedly pursued a goal—just meandered here and there. He has no self-esteem, no confidence. In New York, Alberta had once convinced him to see a psychologist, but he felt uneasy in therapy and felt that he did not make much progress.

At Trinity, his dissertation topic on the literary relations between America and Ireland is accepted, and he begins researching each day in the library. He compiles notes on index cards, but knowing his education has gaps, tries to fill in the background information he is missing. He loses focus, becoming distracted by American history, which fascinates him. He is further distracted by going to the pub for lunch each day and drinks too much. He is aimless and undisciplined, and at the end of two years has lots of notes but no dissertation.

McCourt returns to New York at the beginning of 1971, continuing to work on his dissertation at the public library, but still fails to make progress. His wife goes on maternity leave, and he takes her place at Seward Park until the principal from Fashion Industries High School comes to work at Seward. Soon after, he is dismissed and spends the rest of the school year substitute teaching.