Last time I visited Connaught Place I dropped in at Oxford Bookstore. As my wont, I loitered around, browsing their collection. I picked up a couple of books from Oxford's Very Short Introduction series. I paid for them at the counter and was about to leave when I noticed it. It was E.R Braithwaite's To Sir With Love. I hadn't heard about the author of the book or about the book before. It was a slim volume, cheaply priced but neatly bound. I bought it along with the rest, simply out of curiosity. In the past, I have had good luck with books that I bought out of the blue. I hoped for the same with Braithwaite and he didn't disappoint me.
To Sir With Love is an autobiographical novel written by E.R Braithwaite (Rick), a Guyanese-born British writer. Braithwaite has written a story that is at once personal and social. At the level of the personal, it's the story of his experience as a teacher in one of London's East End schools. At the social level, it's a scathing critique of a racist society and the racial discrimination meted out to the author, a black man, by an ungrateful post-war British society.
Rick is a demobilized airman who finds it impossible to find a job of his choice in post-war Britain. A qualified engineer with a master’s degree, he is rejected by the companies because of his colour. Even when he is the most suitable candidate, companies reject him because the whites wouldn't brook a black man for a superior. Rick lives out the racial implications of 'being a British but not a Briton'. He is disgusted by the overt racism of the Whiteman. Disillusioned, he loses hope, and even contemplates suicide when a chance encounter sends him to a school in London's East End. Greenslade is situated in the East End of London, home to the working-classes of the city. Unlike other schools, Greenslade practices 'free discipline'. To the horror of Rick, who was brought up on the upper-class British manners and mores, the children of Greenslade are a rowdy crowd with no sense of decorum or protocol. They smoke, swear and freely flout the commands of their teachers. Rick wants to leave at first but he is a black man out of job for nearly eighteen months. It's his last chance at making a living and is determined to hold on. Rick is a highly educated black man who can't stand the mannerless lower-classes and their lack of culture. He is judgemental and impatient with his students initially. But as he comes to know about each of them personally he understands their daily struggles. For them the protocols of the upper-class and the lessons of school are a mere formality because ultimately they will end up in the same streets as their parents, they know it. The free discipline of Greenslade, championed by Principal Florian, is a silent recognition of this fact. Rick empathises with them but unlike his colleagues who have given up on these students, Rick believes that they can be changed. The rest of the story is about how Rick transforms the students into responsible adults with a sense of self-respect and duty, towards their families and themselves. In the process, Rick also changes. He becomes an empathetic man, who is accommodative and forgiving of differences.
The central message of the novel, written against the backdrop of racial discrimination and class-exploitation, is empathy. Here, empathy is a two-way street. Rick transformed his students to become the model class for the rest of the school by trying to understand them. The students reciprocate by empathising with his sufferings and his belief in them. They try to understand each other despite themselves and each other’s flaws.
The novel is a commentary on the state of post-war British society. Although Britain won the war, they lost the Empire. They are a nation reduced to their borders which is being overrun by their former colonial subjects who see themselves British, as British as the Britons. It's a nation being rebuilt from the foundations. It includes former moral and cultural convictions. In this state of anxious confusion, it’s easy to lose sight of the basic humanity that unites this medley of races, and their aspirations. We must show the courage to understand each other as we understand ourselves. Empathy is the solution to the problem of cultural mistrust. It’s through empathy that we find ourselves in these changing times and, it’s only when we find ourselves can we write to others, like Rick's students who wrote him, ‘With Love’.
To Sir With Love is an autobiographical novel written by E.R Braithwaite (Rick), a Guyanese-born British writer. Braithwaite has written a story that is at once personal and social. At the level of the personal, it's the story of his experience as a teacher in one of London's East End schools. At the social level, it's a scathing critique of a racist society and the racial discrimination meted out to the author, a black man, by an ungrateful post-war British society.
Rick is a demobilized airman who finds it impossible to find a job of his choice in post-war Britain. A qualified engineer with a master’s degree, he is rejected by the companies because of his colour. Even when he is the most suitable candidate, companies reject him because the whites wouldn't brook a black man for a superior. Rick lives out the racial implications of 'being a British but not a Briton'. He is disgusted by the overt racism of the Whiteman. Disillusioned, he loses hope, and even contemplates suicide when a chance encounter sends him to a school in London's East End. Greenslade is situated in the East End of London, home to the working-classes of the city. Unlike other schools, Greenslade practices 'free discipline'. To the horror of Rick, who was brought up on the upper-class British manners and mores, the children of Greenslade are a rowdy crowd with no sense of decorum or protocol. They smoke, swear and freely flout the commands of their teachers. Rick wants to leave at first but he is a black man out of job for nearly eighteen months. It's his last chance at making a living and is determined to hold on. Rick is a highly educated black man who can't stand the mannerless lower-classes and their lack of culture. He is judgemental and impatient with his students initially. But as he comes to know about each of them personally he understands their daily struggles. For them the protocols of the upper-class and the lessons of school are a mere formality because ultimately they will end up in the same streets as their parents, they know it. The free discipline of Greenslade, championed by Principal Florian, is a silent recognition of this fact. Rick empathises with them but unlike his colleagues who have given up on these students, Rick believes that they can be changed. The rest of the story is about how Rick transforms the students into responsible adults with a sense of self-respect and duty, towards their families and themselves. In the process, Rick also changes. He becomes an empathetic man, who is accommodative and forgiving of differences.
The central message of the novel, written against the backdrop of racial discrimination and class-exploitation, is empathy. Here, empathy is a two-way street. Rick transformed his students to become the model class for the rest of the school by trying to understand them. The students reciprocate by empathising with his sufferings and his belief in them. They try to understand each other despite themselves and each other’s flaws.
The novel is a commentary on the state of post-war British society. Although Britain won the war, they lost the Empire. They are a nation reduced to their borders which is being overrun by their former colonial subjects who see themselves British, as British as the Britons. It's a nation being rebuilt from the foundations. It includes former moral and cultural convictions. In this state of anxious confusion, it’s easy to lose sight of the basic humanity that unites this medley of races, and their aspirations. We must show the courage to understand each other as we understand ourselves. Empathy is the solution to the problem of cultural mistrust. It’s through empathy that we find ourselves in these changing times and, it’s only when we find ourselves can we write to others, like Rick's students who wrote him, ‘With Love’.
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