Literature Festival Frank McCourt
Comment by Andreas Michl
On Wednesday, September 13th, 2006 our class got the chance to see Frank McCourt at the Literature Festival in Berlin.
Having read the international bestseller “Angela’s Ashes” last semester, everybody was curious and excited to see the author of this memoir.
Today Frank McCourt presented his third memoir after his last two international bestsellers.
In “Teacher Man”, Frank McCourt details his amusing and sometimes rather difficult years as an English teacher in the Public High School of New York City.
Having read the memoir “Angela’s Ashes” we all knew his biography up to the time when he arrived in America as a young idealistic Irish boy.
Starting his new life in his new country America wasn’t an easy job for him besides he wasn’t quite sure what he wants to do in his new life. The only thing what mattered at this point was to stop being hungry.
Soon he started working in a hotel and every single day he saw students carrying and reading books on the New York Subway. He decided to join the New York Public Library and every night after work he went there spending hours reading the great novels.
Soon he made his way into New York University and gained a literature degree and a 30 year teaching career begun.
At the Literature Festival we all realized, that Frank McCourt has an incredible detailed knowledge of his biography. McCourt estimates that he probably taught about 12,000 children during his time at the Public High School and he remembered a lot more other details from his teaching career, which made his speeches and the presentation of his book so fascinating.
Listening to McCourt how he told us about his first teaching day was very interesting but especially humorous. As a new teacher nobody seemed to respect him in front of the classroom.
He was confused because actually, he said, nobody told him how to control students or deal with something like a class. Nobody at NYU had ever explained them how to teach a class, Frank McCourt said.
After Frank McCourt and a second really good reader presented passages of the book, McCourt was answering several questions. Especially here, I think everybody realized that Frank McCourt is a really open and intelligent person. He always tried to answer the questions directly, but his ability to put the answer into a humours context was quite amusing for us and the audience.
After the Literature Festival ended, our class met outside and still everybody seemed to be fascinated by Frank McCourt. Everybody talked about his appearance and attitude towards life and teaching.
We think that this event turned Frank McCourt in our imagination from an ordinary author to someone special. His attitude towards life, teaching teenagers and the society was amazing.
Although Frank McCourt grew up in a totally different society and time, he seems to be a really open person towards life and other mentalities or attitudes.
Besides those abilities Frank McCourt is also a very special and humorous person.
All in all after the feedbacks from our class this event was something special and very interesting for us on our fieldtrip to Berlin in September 2006.