School Lunch: Frank McCourt's Moveable Feast

Photo respectfully borrowed from the New York Times

For about a week, I've been getting in the mood for St. Patrick's Day with my Chieftains CD, "The Wide World Over" and listening to the audio recording of the late Frank McCourt's "Teacher Man"...

Although "'Tis" is my favorite book of the "Angela's Ashes" trilogy, "Teacher Man," which I read when it first came out, has found a new place in my heart for its description of the author's trials and tribulations as a high school English teacher for 30 years...

Although the story is told with McCourt's typical self-deprecating humour (when it's really good, I give it the British spelling), he seems to have had an uncanny instinct for propelling bored and sullen teens into learning and creativity using not stern discipline but by only letting them discover what they probably knew all along...

Some of my famorite parts of the book involve, of course, food... On McCourt's first day of teaching at a vocational school, he gets the class's attention by picking up a sandwich that an unruly boy threw at someone - and eating it... He wins the students' hearts when he tells them it was the best sandwich he ever ate, a prefiguration of the cultural sharing that was to follow...

Another class, emboldened by a learning environment created by an adult who actually listens to them, offers en masse to bring their best family specialties to school and share them at a potluck, which they bring to a park... McCourt's descriptions of how exotic treats like Italian meatballs, kim chee, and marzipan are enjoyed together by the gathering - which included some curious police officers and a few homeless people - reinforce my feeling that we could dissolve a lot of the world's cultural differences by just breaking bread, challah, tortilla, or croissant together...

Having his students read cookbooks - initially to learn a wider vocabulary - turns into not only a lesson in storytelling but in performance... The kids decide that a lot of the recipes should be recited with background music and bring in bongo drums, flutes, and violins to accompany their own family's recipes: a mother's special lamb stew, Peking duck...

When students would complain that they had nothing to write about and that he had a storytelling advantage because of his poverty-stricken childhood in Ireland, he would tell them to "use your own ingredients"... Good advice for all of us who want to write but think that our stories have already been told before... Of course they have been - but by somebody else...

But the secret ingredient of a book by Frank McCourt is that you never realize that he wrote this book while you are reading it... Although you hold it in your hands while your eyes and brain do all the work, it is as if he is there, simply telling you a story... I agree with the fan who wrote on the online tribute page that appeared in the New York Times after alongside his obituary:

"... When I read Angela’s Ashes, I read the book slowly so that I could make the reading last. I forced myself to savor the words and in doing so, I felt like I got to know Mr. McCourt. When I finished his book, I was sad– like saying good-bye to a friend."

So, Happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all... A health to Ireland that created such a man and to America that he made his home...