"I had serious doubts whether I would last [as a teacher]," he said.
He added that his Irish accent helped break the ice with his students. He described the American adolescent as "an explosive creature" and later compared teens to "heat-seeking missiles"--they instinctively know which teachers are vulnerable.
But in the end, McCourt said, he spent more time learning than he did teaching.
"Most of all I learned something about the human heart," he said. "I wanted to leave my imprint on [my students]--send them to Harvard."
He noted that one of his students from Stuyvesant was in the audience. "A doctoral candidate, if you don't mind," he added.
He said he survived his childhood poverty through humor and storytelling.
"I wanted to write Angela's Ashes to show what poverty was like," he said.
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