Teacher Man: A Memoir (12 page)

So, he’s up to sixty-eight. Sixty-eight is less likely to arouse suspicions in Albany, where they’re supposed to be checking these tests. Unlikely they’ll look at every exam with the thousands flowing in from around the state. Besides, if there are questions, we teachers will stand shoulder to shoulder to defend our marking system.

Let’s go to lunch.

Mr. Bibberstein, the guidance counselor, said if I had any trouble with any kid to let him know and he’d take care of it. He said new teachers in this system were treated like dirt, or worse. You sink or swim.

I never told him about any difficulties with students. The word gets out. Yeah, man, that new teacher, McCourt, he’ll send your ass to the guidance counselor and next thing he’s calling your dad and you know what that means. Mr. Bibberstein joked I must be a great teacher, getting along so well with the kids I never sent one to his office. He said it must be my Irish charm. You’re not much to look at but the girls love your accent. They told me, so don’t waste it.

When we went on strike with the new union, the United Federation of Teachers, Mr. Bibberstein, Mr. Tolfsen and Miss Gilfillan, the art teacher, crossed the picket line. We called to them, Don’t go in. Don’t go in, but they went in, Miss Gilfillan weeping. The teachers who crossed the picket line were older than the ones outside. They may have been members of the old Teachers’ Union, which was crushed during the McCarthy witch-hunt era. They did not want to be hounded again even though we were striking mostly for recognition as a union.

I felt sympathy for the older teachers and when the strike was over wanted to say I was sorry for the way we shouted at them. On our picket line, at least, no one called out, Scab, the way they did in other schools. Still, there was tension and division at McKee High School, and I didn’t know if I could be friends anymore with the people who crossed the line. Before I became a teacher I hit the picket lines with the Hotel Workers’ Union, the Teamsters and the International Longshoremens’ Association, and was fired from a bank merely for talking to a union organizer. There were warnings and no one would dare to ignore them. Cross this line, pal, and we know where you live. We know where your kids go to school.

We could never say things like that from a teachers’ picket line. We were professionals: teachers, college graduates. When the strike ended we gave the scabs the cold shoulder in the teachers’ cafeteria. They ate together on the other side of the room. In a while they stopped coming to the cafeteria altogether and we had the place to ourselves, loyal members of the United Federation of Teachers.

Mr. Bibberstein barely nodded to me in the hallways and there were no more offers of help with difficult kids. I was surprised when he stopped me one day and barked, What’s this about Barbara Sadlar?

What do you mean?

She came to my office and said you encouraged her to go to college.

That’s right.

What do you mean, that’s right?

I mean I suggested she go to college.

I’d like to remind you this is a vocational and technical high school, not a feeder school for colleges. These kids go into the trades, son. They’re not ready for college.

I told him Barbara Sadlar was one of the brightest students in my five classes. She wrote well, read books, participated in class discussions, and if I, myself, licensed teacher, could go to college without a scrap of high school education why couldn’t Barbara think of it? No one said she had to be a beautician, secretary or anything else.

Because, young man, you’re giving kids ideas they shouldn’t have. We’re trying to be realistic here and you’re coming in with your crazy half-assed ideas. I’m gonna have to talk to her and set her straight. I’d appreciate it if you backed off. Teach English and leave guidance to me. He turned to walk away but turned back again. It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Barbara is a good-looking blonde, would it?

I wanted to say something mean. Scab jumped into my head but I kept silent. He walked away from me and that was the last time we ever spoke. Was it the strike, or was it really Barbara?

He left a greeting card in my mailbox with a note: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, but you better make sure they have something to grasp. Don’t create impossible dreams. Regards, Fergus Bibberstein.”

I
n
1966
, after eight years at McKee, it was time to move on. I still struggled to hold the attention of five classes every day though I was learning what was obvious: You have to make your own way in the classroom. You have to find yourself. You have to develop your own style, your own techniques. You have to tell the truth or you’ll be found out. Oh, teacher man, that’s not what you said last week. It isn’t a matter of virtue or high morality.

So, good-bye, McKee Vocational and Technical High School. With my new master’s degree I’m off to New York Community College in Brooklyn, where a friend, Professor Herbert Miller, helped me find a position as adjunct lecturer, the lowest level of teacher in the university system. I’ll have five or six classes every week, not every day. I’ll be in heaven with all that free time. I’ll earn half the salary of the high school teacher, but the students will be mature, they’ll listen and show respect. They won’t throw things. They won’t object and complain over work in class and homework assignments. Also, they’ll call me professor and that will make me feel important. I am to teach two courses: Introduction to Literature and Basic Composition.

My students were adult, mostly under thirty, working around the city in stores, factories, offices. There was a class of thirty-three firemen working for college credit to rise in the department, all white, mostly Irish.

Almost everyone else was black or Hispanic. I could have been one of them, working by day, studying by night. Since there were no discipline problems I had to adjust and develop a kind of teaching where I didn’t have to tell anyone sit down, please, and be quiet. If they were late they said sorry and took their seats. I hardly knew what to do when those first classes filed in, sat and waited for my lecture. No one asked for the lavatory pass. No one raised a hand to accuse anyone of stealing a sandwich or a book or a seat. No one tried to get me off the subject by asking me about Ireland in general or my miserable childhood in particular.

You have to get up there, man, and teach.

A footnote, ladies and gentlemen, is what you put at the bottom of the page to show the source of your information.

A hand.

Yes, Mr. Fernandez?

How come?

How come what?

I mean if I’m writing about the New York Giants why can’t I just say I read it in the
Daily News,
why?

Because, Mr. Fernandez, this is a research paper and that means you have to show exactly, exactly, Mr. Fernandez, where you got your information.

I dunno, professor, I mean that seems like a lotta trouble. I’m just writing this paper about the Giants and why they’re having a losing season. I mean I’m not training to be a lawyer or nothin’.

Mr. Tomas Fernandez was twenty-nine. He worked as a mechanic for New York City. He hoped an associate degree would help him get a promotion. He had a wife and three children and sometimes, in class, he fell asleep. When he snored, the other students would look at me to see what I was going to do about it. I touched his shoulder and suggested he take a break outside. He said, OK, left the room and did not return that night. He missed class the following week and when he returned said, no, he wasn’t sick. He was over in New Jersey at the football game, the Giants, you know. He had to see the Giants when they were at home. Couldn’t miss his Giants. He said it was too bad this class was on Monday, same night as the game when the Giants were home.

Too bad, Mr. Fernandez?

Yeah. Like, you know, I can’t be in two places at one time.

But, Mr. Fernandez, this is a college. This course is required.

Yeah, says Mr. Fernandez. I understand your problem, professor.

My problem? My problem, Mr. Fernandez?

Well, like, you have to do something about me and the Giants. Right?

It’s not that, Mr. Fernandez. It’s just that if you don’t attend class you are going to fail.

He stares at me as if trying to understand why I’m talking in this strange way. He tells me and the class how he’s followed the Giants all his life and he’s not going to desert them now that they’re having a losing season. No one would respect him. His seven-year-old son would despise him. Even his wife, who never cared about the Giants, would lose respect for him.

Why, Mr. Fernandez?

That’s easy to see, professor. All these Sundays and Mondays I spent on the Giants she waits home for me, takes care of the kids and everything, even forgives me the time of her mother’s funeral when I couldn’t go because the Giants were in the playoffs, man. So now if I was to give up the Giants she’d say, What was it all for, me waiting and waiting? She’d say it was all wasted. That’s how she’d lose respect because there’s one thing about my wife, she sticks to her guns the way I stick to the Giants, know what I mean?

Rowena from Barbados says she thinks this discussion is a waste of class time and why doesn’t he grow up. Why didn’t he take this class on another night besides Monday?

Because the other classes were full and I heard Mr. McCourt was a nice guy that wouldn’t mind if I went to a football game after working all day. You know?

Rowena from Barbados says she doesn’t know. Shit or get off the pot, mon, excuse the language. We come here after a hard day’s work, too, and we don’t snore in class and run off to football games. We should have a vote.

Heads nod around the room, yes to the vote. Thirty-three say Mr. Fernandez should attend class, no Giants. Mr. Fernandez votes for himself. Giants all the way.

Even though the Giants are on television that evening he’s gracious enough to stay till the end of the class. He shakes my hand and assures me he has no hard feelings, that I’m really a nice guy, but we all have our blind spots.

Freddie Bell was an elegant young black man. He worked in the men’s clothing department at the Abraham and Strauss Department Store. He helped me select a jacket there and that led to a different level of relationship. Yes, I’m in your class but I helped you pick out that jacket. He liked to write in a florid style using big words and rare words lifted from dictionary and thesaurus and when I wrote on his paper, “Simplify, simplify (Thoreau),” he wanted to know who was this Thoreau and why would anyone want to write like a baby?

Because, Freddie, your reader might appreciate clarity. Clarity, Freddie, clarity.

He didn’t agree. His high school English teacher told him the English language was a glorious organ. Why not take advantage of this tremendous instrument? Pull out all the stops, so to speak.

Because, Freddie, what you’re doing is false, forced and artificial.

That was the wrong thing to say, especially with thirty of his fellow students watching and listening. His face froze and I knew I had lost him. That would mean a hostile presence in the class the remainder of the term, a discomfiting prospect for me, still making my way in this adult-student world.

He struck back with language. His writing became more elaborate and tortured. His grades slipped from As to B minuses. At the end he asked for an explanation of the grade. He said he’d shown his essays to his old English teacher and he, the old English teacher, simply could not understand how Freddie could get less than an A plus. Look at the language. Look at the vocabulary. Look at the levels of meaning. Look at the sentence structure: varied, sophisticated, complex.

We faced each other in the hallway. He would not give up. He said he worked hard in my class looking up new words so that I wouldn’t be bored with the same old words. His old English teacher said there was nothing worse than reading miles of student writing and never coming across an original thought or some fresh vocabulary. Old English teacher said Mr. McCourt should appreciate Freddie’s efforts and reward him accordingly. Freddie should get credit simply for venturing into new territory, for pushing the envelope. Also, said Freddie, I work nights to make a living and pay my way through college. You know what that’s like, Mr. McCourt.

I don’t see what that has to do with your writing.

Also, it’s not easy when you’re black in this society.

Oh, Christ, Freddie. It’s not easy being anything in this society. All right. You want an A? You’ll get it. I don’t want to be accused of bigotry.

No, I don’t want it just because you’re pissed off 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 weird, that class, but I figured I might even become a teacher like you.

I am teaching this course that requires a research paper. The student must demonstrate the ability to select a topic, engage in basic research, make notes on index cards so that the instructor can determine the source of the material, provide scholarly footnotes and a bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

I take my students to the library so that the pleasant enthusiastic librarian can show them how to find information, how to use the basic tools of research. They listen to her and look at one another and whisper in Spanish and French, but when she asks if they have any questions they stare, embarrassing the librarian, who so wants to be helpful.

I try to explain the simple idea of research.

First, you choose a topic.

What’s that?

Think of something you’re interested in, maybe a problem bothering you and people in general. You could write about capitalism, religion, abortion, children, politics, education. Some of you come from Haiti or Cuba. Two rich subjects. You could write about voodoo or the Bay of Pigs. You could look at some aspect of your country, human rights, for instance, do a little research, look at the pros and cons, think about it, come to a conclusion.

Excuse me, professor, what’s pros and cons?

Pro is for, con is against.

Oh.

The Oh means they have no notion of what I am talking about. I have to backtrack, come at it from another angle. I ask them where they stand on capital punishment. The looks tell me they don’t know where they stand because they don’t know what I’m talking about.

Capital punishment is the execution of people by hanging, electrocution, gassing, shooting or garroting.

What’s that?

A kind of strangling they have mostly in Spain.

They ask me to write it on the board. They scribble it in their notebooks and I make a mental note that if ever a class dragged I’d turn immediately to the various methods of execution.

Vivian from Haiti raises her hand. That’s wrong, that executing, but I think it’s OK for the other thing, the one about the babies, Oh, yeah, the abortion. They should be shot.

All right, Vivian. Why don’t you write that in your research paper?

Me? Write down what I’m saying? Who cares what I’m saying? I’m nobody, professor. Nobody.

Their faces are blank. They don’t understand. How could they? What’s this about the other side of a story? Nobody ever told them they had a right to an opinion.

They’re not shy about speaking up in class, but putting words on paper is a dangerous step, especially when you grew up with Spanish or French. Besides, they don’t have time for all this. They’ve got kids to raise and jobs and they have to send money to their families back in Haiti and Cuba. It’s easy for professors to give all these assignments but, man, there’s another world out there and God only put twenty-four hours in the day.

There are ten minutes left in the hour and I tell the class they should feel free now to explore the library. No one moves. They don’t even whisper anymore. They sit in their winter overcoats. They clutch book bags and wait till that exact second when the hour ends.

In the hallway I tell my friend, veteran professor Herbert Miller, of my problems with this class. He says, They work days and nights. They come to class. They sit and listen. They do their best. These people in the admissions office let them in, then expect the teacher to perform a miracle or be the hatchet man. I’m not going to be the enforcer for the front office. Research? How can these people do research papers when they still struggle to read the damn newspaper?

The class would agree with Miller. They’d nod and say, Yeah, yeah. They think they’re nobody.

That was something I should have known all along: the people in my classes, adults from eighteen to sixty-two, thought their opinions did not matter. Whatever ideas they had came from the avalanche of media in our world. No one had ever told them they had a right to think for themselves.

I told them, You have a right to think for yourselves.

Silence in the classroom. I said, You don’t have to swallow everything I tell you. Or what anyone tells you. You can ask questions. If I don’t have the answer we can look it up in the library or discuss it here.

They look at one another. Yeah. The man is talking funny. Tells us we don’t have to believe him. Hey, we came here to learn English so’s we can pass. We gotta graduate.

I wanted to be the Great Liberating Teacher, to raise them from their knees after days of drudgery in offices and factories, to help them cast off their shackles, to lead them to the mountaintop, to breathe the air of freedom. Once their minds were cleared of cant they’d see me as savior.

For the people in this class life was hard enough without having an English teacher preaching about thinking and bothering them with questions.

Man, we just wanna get through this place.

The research papers turned out to be an ecstasy of plagiarism, articles on Papa Doc Duvalier and Fidel Castro lifted from encyclopedias. Vivian’s paper on Touissant-L’Ouverture rambled on for seventeen pages in English and Haitian French and I gave it a B plus for the labor of copying and typing. I tried to redeem myself with a comment on the title page to the effect that Touissant thought for himself and suffered for it and I hoped Vivian might follow his example, though not to the suffering part.

When I returned the papers I tried to say positive things about them, to encourage the authors to dig into their subjects even more.

I was talking to myself. It was the last class of the year and they were looking at their watches, ignoring me. I walked to the subway, dejected and angry with myself for not having made some kind of connection with them. Four women from the class waited on the subway platform. They smiled and asked if I lived in Manhattan.