to teach five classes of high school students every day, always regaining their attention if some slip of his tongue caused them not to pay attention. McCourt was asked if he would have liked to have been an author earlier in his life, not teaching five classes a day for so many years. His reply begins as he "quickly shakes his head. On the good days, and there were many, he never felt so alive, caught up in the currents of adolescent energy. And McCourt brought his own spark, like having the students write each other’s obituaries or set recipes to music." Italie interviewed a student of McCourt from his years at Stuyvesant High School who is now an author herself: "Susan Gilman, remembers McCourt as an innovative and charismatic teacher so popular that students would “forget their program cards” to get in his class. For Gilman, the McCourt legend preceded meeting him." She went on to describe McCourt as "“a very quiet guy, unlike the rest of the rabble,” Hamill says with a laugh. “He had a low-key, wicked sense of humor." Jacki Lyden interviewed Frank McCourt and referred to Teacher Man as an "amusing and grim chronicle" of his life as a high school teacher; she remarked favorably on his use of language in the book, mentioning one phrase about the students "turning pages like lead" when they were not happy. The title of the book emerges from his second day of teaching at McKee Vocational High School, when one student both asked a question that framed McCourt's teaching style for the next 30 years, and then would not pick up on and use McCourt's name, but called him, "yo, teach" and then "yo, teacher man", when asking his question. The prologue from Teacher Man is reprinted at the web page; the interview is audio. References Literary autobiographies 2005 non-fiction books Novels by Frank McCourt