To Sir with Love - E R Braithwaite

 To Sir with Love by  E R Braithwaite was 81st of 2020 again a recap from school days both of movie and the book, but it gave so much more insight now on the diversity and inclusion.

Born in Guyana on 27 June 1912, Eustace Edward Ricardo Braithwaite was the child of privileged parents, both graduates of Oxford University. His father was a diamond miner while his mother raised the family. During the second world war, he joined the Royal Air Force to fight as a pilot before going on to Cambridge to read physics. Ricky Braithwaite is an engineer from British Guiana who has worked in an oil refinery in Aruba. Coming to Britain just before the outbreak of World War II, he joins the RAF and is assigned to aircrew. Demobbed in 1945, he is unable to find work despite his qualifications and experience due to racism. After discussing his situation with a stranger, he applies for a teaching position and is assigned to Greenslade School, a secondary school in London's East End.

Ricky Braithwaite of this world cannot by themselves,  uproot prejudice, but they can point to its existence. And this, after all, is the beginning of change, one must first identify the location of the problem before one can set about addressing it. There were lessons he too had to learn, particular about humility and patience.

Most of the pupils in his class are unmotivated to learn, and are only semi-literate and semi-articulate. He persists despite their unresponsiveness to his approach. Students attempt to discourage and demoralise him by disruptive noises, constant use of the adjective "bleeding" in the classroom and, finally, the burning of a used sanitary towel in the fireplace. This last causes Braithwaite to lose his temper and reprimand all the girls.

Braithwaite decides to try a new approach, and sets some ground rules. The students will be leaving school soon and will enter adult society, so he will treat them as adults and allow them to decide what topics they wish to study. In return, he demands their respect as their teacher. This novel approach is initially rejected, but within a few weeks the class is largely won over. He suggests out-of-school activities including visits to museums, which the students have never experienced before. A young teacher, Gillian Blanchard, volunteers to assist him on these trips. Some of the girls start to speculate whether a personal relationship is budding between Braithwaite and Gillian. The trip is a success and more are approved by the initially skeptical headmaster.

The teachers and the Student Council openly discuss all matters affecting the school including curricula. The general feeling is that Braithwaite's approach is working, although some teachers advocate a tougher approach. The mother of one of the girls speaks privately to Braithwaite about the girl's troubling attraction to nightlife, feeling that he has more influence with her impressionable daughter.

Braithwaite and Gillian fall deeply in love and discuss marriage. Her parents are openly disapproving of a mixed-race marriage, but realise that the couple are serious and intelligent and must be trusted to make the right decision.

At the end of the year, even he too leave the school, and the title of the book is what the students had written on the gift to him. 

Following this was successful career as a social worker and a diplomat. He died in 2016 at the age of 104, at his home in Maryland.