Frank McCourt, Honorary Chair, New Yorkers for Smaller Classes

Pulitzer Prize winner and former teacher Frank McCourt has been a hero and inspiration to teachers everywhere but especially in New York, where he had his pedagogical baptism-by-fire in the classrooms of the city’s schools. His 1996 memoir, Angela’s Ashes, won the Pulitzer Prize, but his latest work, Teacher Man, about his experiences in various schools speaks directly to the hearts and minds of students, parents and his teacher colleagues.

McCourt agreed to serve as honorary chair of New Yorkers for Smaller Classes at the United Federation of Teachers’ 2006 Spring Conference, when he was presented with the UFT’s Dewey Award, its highest honor.

In accepting the award, McCourt said, “You’re not just a teacher. You’re dealing with … 175 kids every day ... you’re a doctor, you’re a rabbi, you’re a shoulder to cry on, you’re a symphony conductor: you’re the Toscanini of pedagogy — that’s a pretty good phrase, the Toscanini of pedagogy … you’re all of these things. That’s what the outside world doesn’t understand.”

McCourt was born in Brooklyn in 1930 but his family moved to Ireland when he was 4. He spent his formative years there penniless and destitute. His father, a “shiftless, loquacious alcoholic,” abandoned his family when McCourt was 12 and his mother, Angela, begged from churches and charities to hold the family together. As he recounts in Angela’s Ashes, McCourt nearly died from typhoid fever but recovered in a hospital where, amid clean sheets and for the first time enough to eat, McCourt was introduced to the world of books.

When he was 19 he returned to America, working at a variety of jobs while spending all his spare time in the public library. After a stint in the Army, McCourt persuaded an admissions officer at New York University to admit him, despite never having attended high school. He used the G.I. Bill to pay for tuition and worked nights doing manual labor.
After graduating from NYU, McCourt spent the next 30 years teaching English in New York City public schools, including McKee Vocational and Technical High School, Seward Park HS, the HS of Fashion Industries and Stuyvesant HS. Throughout his teaching career he used creative and innovative techniques to stimulate and inspire students. He explained that his inspiration came from the student themselves. “It was the students teaching me all along the way … about the human heart.”

McCourt’s second book, Tis, recounted his life in the years after he first returned to the U.S. He has also written for  the stage. With his brother Malachy, he created “A Couple of Blaguards,” a two-man show detailing their experiences, and a musical revue, “The Irish … And How They Got That Way.”

In a 2005 interview, Leonard Lopate of WNYC asked McCourt what he'd do if he was named chancellor. McCourt replied: "I'd certainly go to Albany and get more money for teachers' salaries... and I'd certainly cut the size of the classes, because they're monstrous."