Frank McCourt

A series of high profile people have passed away recently-Michael Jackson-Walter Cronkite-Karl Malden-one after the other- it makes you wonder who will be remembered as time goes by- will all of them?- certainly MJ will and Walter Cronkite is sure to be remembered-probably a few streets named after him- maybe a school or college-karl Malden maybe not so much but who knows- he was a great actor-one of the best of his generation-and michael Douglass may make a gesture of some kind- but the redent death of Frank McCourt should not be forgotten-his life is extraordinarilly inspiring- not for the books-they are inspiring for the quality of the writing and the fact that he won a Pulitzer Prize-but for the fact that at age 66 he pursued a career as a writer and succeeded so well at it-he spent 30 yeras teaching in the NYC Public School system before that-most of it at Stuyvesant High School-but at a lot of other schools as well-he was a good teacher-plain and simple-he talked about teaching all the time-in interviews and in his work- you can learn so much about how to be a good teacher just listening to his stories- and what wondeful stories they are- oh to have had a chance to have a lunch with him or just shoot the breeze some afternoon- i love the writing assignments he would think up for his students- one was to have them write their own obituaries- another was to have them write an excuse for missing school or a class or for not turning in an assigment- this is very funny and he relates some of the most unusual and imaginative excuses he read during his career- he mentions a disciplinay repoort he found at Stuyvesant that he found on the actor James Cagney-apparently he had been forging a few excuses himself during his time there-frank McCourt can also be a source of inspiration for those of us who have lived with or been raised by or have a friend or relative who is an alchoholic- that is what ANGELA'S ASHES is about in part-TEACHER MAN and TIS are about his life as an immigrant in NYC and his career as a teacher-I share a lot of life experience with this wonderful man-i have been a teacher for 30 years-and i have spent the last 15 years coming to terms with the disease of alcoholism and how it has shaped and influenced my life-My hope is that he will not be forgotten- that his work will be read for many years to come-but that also that his valuable insights into the teaching profession will be noted and followed for even longer-james B Turner