Teacher Man

by Frank McCourt

  No, I'm not trying to make some kind of point except to say I like this poem because of its simple message.

  What's that?

  That people should stop bothering people. Little Bo Peep backs off. She could stay up all night, waiting and whimpering by the door, but she knows better. She trusts her sheep. She leaves them alone and they come home, and you can imagine the joyful reunion, a lot of merry bleating and frolicking and deep expressions of satisfaction from the rams as they settle in for the night while Bo Peep knits by the fire happy in the knowledge that in her daily rounds, caring for the sheep and their offspring, she has bothered nobody.

  In my English classes at Stuyvesant High School the students agreed that nothing on television or out of Hollywood could equal, in violence and horror, the story of Hansel and Gretel. Jonathan Greenberg spoke out. How can we subject children to the story of some asshole of a father who is so dominated by his new wife he's willing to lose his kids in the woods and let them starve to death? How can we tell children how Hansel and Gretel were locked up by that witch who wanted to fatten and cook them? And is there anything more horrible than the scene where they push her into the fire? She's a mean old cannibal of a witch and deserves what she got but wouldn't all this give a kid nightmares?

  Lisa Berg said these stories have been around for hundreds of years. We all grew up with them and enjoyed them and survived them, so what is the big deal.

  Rose Kane agreed with Jonathan. When she was little, she had nightmares over Hansel and Gretel and maybe that was because she herself had a new stepmother who was a bitch on wheels. A real bitch who wouldn't think twice of losing her and her sister in Central Park or some distant station in the New York subway system. After she heard the Hansel and Gretel story from her first-grade teacher she refused to go anywhere with her stepmother unless her father was with them. That would infuriate her father so much he'd threaten her with all kinds of punishment. You go with your stepmother, Rose, or you're grounded forever. Which, of course, proved he was completely dominated by the stepmother, who had a carbuncle on her chin like all the stepmothers in fairy tales, a carbuncle with little sprouting hairs that she was always plucking.

  Everyone in the class seemed to have an opinion on the Hansel and Gretel story and the main question was, Would you tell this story to your children? I suggested that the pros and the antis separate and sit on opposite sides of the room and it was remarkable to see that the class was split down the middle. I suggested also that there should be a moderator for this discussion but passions were running high, no one was neutral on the matter, and I'd have to take the job myself.

  It was minutes before I could calm the hullabaloo in the room. The anti-Hansel and Gretel side said their children could be damaged so badly it would lead to huge costs in psychotherapy. Oh, bullshit, said the pro side. Come off it. No one is in therapy because of fairy tales. Every kid in America and Europe grew up with these stories.

  The antis brought up the violence in Little Red Riding Hood, the wolf swallowing the grandmother without even chewing her, and the meanness of the stepmother in Cinderella. You wonder how a kid could survive hearing or reading any of this.

  Lisa Berg said something so remarkable it caused a sudden silence in the room. She said kids have stuff in their heads so dark and deep it's beyond our comprehension.

  Wow, someone said.

  They knew Lisa had hit on something. They weren't so far removed from childhood themselves, although they wouldn't like to hear you say it, and you could sense in that silence a drifting back to a childhood dreamland.

  Next day we sang fragments from my childhood. There was no point to the activity, no deeper meaning. No test loomed to infect our singing. I felt twinges of guilt but I enjoyed myself and from the way they sang, those Jewish, Korean, Chinese, American kids, I assumed they enjoyed themselves, too. They knew the basic nursery rhymes. Now they had melodies to go with them.

  Old Mother Hubbard Hubbard

  Went to the cupboard cupboard

  To get her poor doggie a bone a bone

  When she got there there

  The cupboard was bare bare

  And so the poor doggie got none.

  Observation report I would have written if I were Assistant Deputy Superintendent of Pedagogy at the Board of Education, 110 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, New York, 11201:

  Dear Mr. McCourt:

  When I entered your classroom on March 2 your students were singing, rather loudly and disturbingly, I may say, a medley of nursery rhymes. You led them from rhyme to rhyme with no pauses for elucidation, exploration, justification, analysis. Indeed, there seemed to be no context at all for this activity, no purpose.

  A teacher of your experience might surely have noted the number of students attired in outerwear, the number lounging in their seats with legs stuck into the aisles. No one seemed to have a notebook, nor instructions for its use. You realize the notebook is the basic tool of any high school student of English and the teacher who neglects that tool is derelict in his or her duty.

  Regrettably, there was nothing on the chalkboard to indicate the nature of the day's lesson. That may explain why the notebooks lay unused in the students' bags.

  Within my rights as an Assistant Deputy Superintendent of Pedagogy I queried some of your students when the session ended as to whatever learnings they might have carried away that day.

  They were vague to the point of head scratching, completely at a loss as to the point of this singing activity. One said he had enjoyed himself and that is a valid comment but, surely, that is not the purpose of a high school education.

  I fear I will have to pass on my observations to the Deputy Superintendent of Pedagogy, who, no doubt, will inform the Superintendent of Pedagogy herself. You may be summoned for a hearing at the Board of Education. If so you may be accompanied by a union representative and/or a lawyer.

  Sincerely,

  Montague Wilkinson III

  All right, the bell has rung. Once again you are mine. Open your books. Turn to this poem, "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke. If you don't have a book, look over someone's shoulder. No one in this class will begrudge you an over-the-shoulder look. Stanley, would you read the poem aloud? Thanks.

  My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke

  The whiskey on your breath

  Could make a small boy dizzy;

  But I hung on like death:

  Such waltzing was not easy.

  We romped until the pans

  Slid from the kitchen shelf;

  My mother's countenance

  Could not unfrown itself.

  The hand that held my wrist

  Was battered on one knuckle;

  At every step you missed

  My right ear scraped a buckle.

  You beat time on my head

  With a palm caked by dirt,

  Then waltzed me off to bed

  Still clinging to your shirt.

  Thanks again, Stanley. Take a few minutes to look over the poem again. Let it sink in. So, when you read the poem, what happened?

  What do you mean, What happened?

  You read the poem. Something happened, something moved in your head, in your body, in your lunch box. Or nothing happened. You're not required to respond to every stimulus in the universe. You're not weather vanes.

  Mr. McCourt, what are you talking about?

  I'm saying you don't have to respond to everything a teacher or anyone else sets before you.

  They look dubious. Oh, yeah. Tell that to some of the teachers around here. They take everything personally.

  Mr. McCourt, do you want us to talk about what the poem means?

  I'd like you to talk about whatever you'd like to talk about in the general neighborhood of this poem. Bring in your grandmother if you like. Don't worry about the "real" meaning of the poem. Even the poet won't know that. When you read it something happened, or nothing happened. Would you raise your hand if nothing happened? All right, no
hands. So, something happened in your head or your heart or your bowels. You're a writer. What happens when you hear music? Chamber music? Rock? You see a couple arguing on the street. You look at a child rebelling against his mother. You see a homeless man begging. You see a politician giving a speech. You ask someone to go out with you. You observe the response of the other person. Because you're a writer, you ask yourself always always always, What's happening, baby?

  Well, like, this poem is about a father dancing with his kid and it's not pleasant because the father is drunk and insensitive.

  Brad?

  If it's not pleasant, why does he hang on like death?

  Monica?

  There's a lot going on here. The kid is dragged around the kitchen. He could be a rag doll for all the papa cares.

  Brad again?

  There's a giveaway word here, romped. That's a happy word, right? I mean he could've said danced or something ordinary, but he says romped and, like you're always telling us, a word can change the atmosphere of a sentence or a paragraph. So, romped creates a happy atmosphere.

  Jonathan?

  You can tell me I'm out of order, Mr. McCourt, but did your father ever dance you around the kitchen?

  He never danced us around the kitchen, but he got us out of bed late at night and made us sing patriotic Irish songs and promise to die for Ireland.

  Yeah, I figured this poem had something to do with your childhood.

  That's partly true, but I asked you to read this because it captures a moment, a mood, and there might be, forgive me for this, there might be a deeper meaning. Some of you want the worth of your money. What about the mother? Sheila?

  What's going on in this poem is very simple. This guy has a hard job, coal miner or something. Comes home with a battered knuckle, hands caked with dirt. The wife sits over there mad as hell but she's used to it. She knows it's going to happen once a week when he gets paid. Like your dad. Right, Mr. McCourt? The kid loves his father because you're always drawn to the crazy one. Doesn't matter that the mother keeps the house going. Kid takes that for granted. So when the dad comes home, oh, he's all charged up from the drink and gets the kid all excited.

  What happens when the poem finishes? David?

  The dad waltzes him off to bed. The mom puts the pans back on the kitchen shelf. Next day is Sunday and the dad gets up feeling lousy. The mom makes breakfast but won't talk to anyone and the kid is caught between. He's only about nine because he's only tall enough to scrape his ear on the buckle. The mother would like to walk out and get a divorce because she's sick of the drinking and the lousy life but she can't because she's stuck in the middle of West Virginia and there's no escape when you don't have money.

  Jonathan?

  What I like about this poem is, there it is, a simple story. Or, no. Wait a minute. It isn't that simple. There's a lot going on, and there's a before and after. If you were to make a movie of this poem you'd have a hard job directing it. Would you have the kid in the opening scene where the mother and the kid are waiting for the father? Or would you just show the opening lines where the kid is wincing over the whiskey? How would you tell the kid to hang on? Reaching up to hang on the shirt? How would you get the mother's countenance without making her look mean? You'd have to decide what kind of guy this dad is when he's sober because if he's like this all the time you wouldn't even want to make a movie about him. What I don't like is how he beats time on the kid's head with a dirty hand, which, of course, is proof he works hard.

  Ann?

  I dunno. There's a lot in here after you talk about it. Why can't we just leave it alone? Just take the story and feel sorry for the kid and the mother with her countenance and, maybe, the dad, and not analyze it to death.

  David?

  We're not analyzing. We're just responding. If you go to a movie you come out talking about it, don't you?

  Sometimes, but this is a poem and you know what English teachers do to poems. Analyze, analyze, analyze. Dig for the deeper meaning. That's what turned me against poetry. Someone should dig a grave and bury the deeper meaning.

  I asked you only what happened when you read the poem. If nothing happened it's not a crime. When I hear heavy metal, the eyes glaze. Some of you could probably explain it to me and I'd try to listen to that music with some understanding, but I just don't care. You don't have to respond to every stimulus. If "My Papa's Waltz" leaves you cold, then it leaves you cold.

  That's one thing, Mr. McCourt, but we have to be careful. If you say something negative about anything, English teachers take it personally and get mad. My sister got in trouble with an English professor at Cornell over the way she interpreted one of Shakespeare's sonnets. He said she was off the mark entirely, and she said a sonnet can be read a hundred different ways, otherwise why would you see a thousand Shakespeare criticism books on the library shelves, and he got pissed off and told her to see him in his office. This time he was nice to her and she backed off and said maybe he was right and went out to dinner with him in Ithaca and I got pissed off at her for giving in like that. Now we only say hello to each other.

  Why don't you write about that, Ann? It's an unusual story, you and your sister not talking because of a Shakespeare sonnet.

  I could, but I'd have to get into the whole sonnet thing, what he said, what she said, and, since I hate getting into deeper meanings, and she's not talking to me anyway, I don't have the entire story.

  David?

  Make it up. There are three characters here, Ann and her sister and the professor, and there's the sonnet that's causing all the trouble. You could have a hell of a time with that sonnet. You could change the names, get away from the sonnet, say it's a big fight about "My Papa's Waltz," and next thing is you have a story they want to turn into a movie.

  Jonathan?

  No offense to Ann but I can't think of anything more boring than a story about a college student arguing with a professor over a sonnet. I mean, Jesus, excuse the language, this world is falling to pieces, people starving, et cetera, and these people have nothing else to do but argue over a poem. I'd never buy that story and I wouldn't go to the movie if they let me take my whole family for free.

  Mr. McCourt.

  Yes, Ann?

  Tell Jonathan he can kiss my ass.

  Sorry, Ann. That's a message you'll have to deliver yourself. There's the bell but, remember, you don't have to respond to every stimulus.

  Whenever a lesson sagged, whenever their minds wandered, when too many asked for the pass, I fell back on the "dinner interrogation." Government officials or concerned superiors might have asked, Is this a valid educational activity?

  Yes, it is, ladies and gentlemen, because this is a writing class and everything is grist to our mill.

  Also, the interrogation made me feel like a prosecutor playing with a witness. If the class was amused I took credit. I was at center stage: Master Teacher, Interrogator, Puppeteer, Conductor.

  James, what did you have for dinner last night?

  He looks surprised. What?

  Dinner, James. What did you have for dinner last night?

  He seems to be searching his memory.

  James, it's less than twenty-four hours ago.

  Oh, yeah. Chicken.

  Where did it come from?

  What do you mean?

  Did someone buy it, James, or did it fly in the window?

  My mother.

  So your mother does the shopping?

  Well, yeah, except like sometimes we run out of milk or something and she sends my sister to the store. My sister always complains.

  Does your mother work?

  Yeah, she's a legal secretary.

  How old is your sister?

  Fourteen.

  And you?

  Sixteen.

  So your mother works and does the shopping and your sister is two years younger than you and has to run to the store. You are never sent to the store?

  No.

  So who cooks the chi
cken?

  My mother.

  And what are you doing while your sister runs to the store and your mother is knocking herself out in the kitchen?

  I'm like in my room.

  Doing what?

  Catching up with my homework or, you know, listening to music.

  And what is your father doing while your mother cooks the chicken?

  He's like in the living room watching the news on TV. He has to keep up with things because he's a broker.

  Who helps your mother in the kitchen?

  Sometimes my sister helps.

  Not you, not your father?

  We don't know how to cook.

  But someone has to set the table.

  My sister.

  Haven't you ever set the table?

  Yeah, once when my sister went to the hospital with her appendix but it was no good because I didn't know where to put things and my mom got mad and told me get out of the kitchen.

  All right. Who puts the food on the table?

  Mr. McCourt, I dunno why you keep asking me these questions when you know what I'm gonna say. My mom puts the food on the table.

  What did you have with the chicken last night?

  We had, like, you know, salad.

  What else?

  We had baked potatoes, me and my dad. My mom and sister won't eat them because they're on a diet and the potato is a killer.

  And what about the table setting? Did you have a tablecloth?

  Are you kidding? We had straw place mats.

  What happened during the dinner?

  What do you mean?

  Did you talk? Was there fine music to dine by?

  My dad kept listening to the TV and my mom got mad at him for not paying attention to his dinner after all the trouble she went to.

  Oh, conflict at the dinner table. Didn't you all discuss the events of the day? Didn't you talk about school?

  Naw. Then Mom started clearing the table because my dad went back to watch the TV. My mom got mad again because my sister said she didn't want her chicken. She said it was making her fat, the chicken. Mr. McCourt, why are we doing this? Why you asking all these questions? It's so boring.

  Turn it back to the class. What do you think? This is a writing class. Did you learn anything about James and his family? Is there a story there? Jessica?

  My mom would never put up with that crap. James and his dad get treated like kings. The mom and the sister do everything and they just hang out and get their dinner served up to them. I'd like to know who cleans up and washes the dishes. No, I don't have to ask: the mom, the sister.