Filed under: Books
I’ve just finished a book which probably qualifies as the longest read of my life - that is, if I exclude Immanuel C.Y. Hsu’s ‘The Rise of Modern China’, which served as bedtime reading and pillow as well as drool-absorber during my JC days. During my dalliance with McCourt’s book, there were others, but never one which I actually finished, as such is the fate, as McCourt also admits to share, of the English teacher. One would think that we gobble books down three times a day, before and after meals, but no, the sad truth is that one probably only picks it up at bedtime, nicely propped up by pilows, when most of the world is snoozing already, only to doze off five minutes and 3 pages later. None of this long read has anything to do with stuffy writing or the book being a word-monster - it’s less than 300 pages on a hardcover edition. Rather, this is one book which I swore I would take time over, reading, and thinking, and it was pretty rewarding, mostly because I found traces of myself in it, minus the Irishness of course. It doesn’t pretend to be the biography of a master teacher, who rose up the ranks of poorly paid middle school teachers who worried about rent and kids and were hassled by students who couldn’t be bothered to the echelons of the elegant University professor. He admits to weaknesses, uncertainties, not knowing things, not being able to grasp the so-called true meaning of education that some politicians and edu-officials proclaim un-selfconsciously to know. When it comes to these, McCourt is at times humorously self-deprecating, satirical but never sarcastic. The latter he saves for his ex-wife, I suppose.
I applaud the man for fleshing out the English teacher who never pretends to know it all or to be perfect, who eschews bureaucratic approaches to teaching and most of all for appearing to fumble through most of it. Some of his experiences with students which he taught, with education officials, etc, really made me kneel and kiss the earth in gratitude for my relative good fortune. But these have also made him come up with innovations in the classroom which could either be seen as sheer genius or sheer lunacy. McCourt taught his creative writing class to read recipes, which eventually climaxed into a class recipe reading accompanied by a symphony of sorts. Another related lesson saw the students bringing all sorts of food for a picnic. He even introduced lesser-known bisexual Beat inspirer cum small time thief cum male prostitute cum drug addict Herbert Huncke to his class!
One of the more light-hearted but honest anecdotes McCourt relates is the eponymous forging of excuse notes, like the one quoted below;
‘Dear Mr McCourt, Mikey’s grandmother who is my mother eighty years of age fell down the stairs from too much coffee and I kept Mikey at home to take care of her and his baby sister so I could go to my job at the coffee shop in the ferry terminal. Please excuse Mikey and he’ll do his best in the future as he likes your class. Sincerely yours, Imelda Dolan. P.S. His grandmother is OK.’
MCourt’s lyrical narrative slips into one’s imagination easily and smoothly, such as when he describes how even the weather affects lessons, ‘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. … Rain is magic. Rain is king. Go with it, teacher man. Take your time. Lower your voice. … It should rain everyday. 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 to tell us be of good cheer, summer in my room, copulate on the windowsill and that is more seductive than the best lesson by the greatest teacher in the world.’
Kudos to McCourt for his comic and honest portrayal of teaching in the high school. For being both ‘Teacher’ and ‘Man’.
