To Sir, with Love

This classic schoolroom drama of a black teacher in London's tough East End who triumphs over bigotry and ignorance to change the lives of his students forever.

With opportunities for black men limited in post-World War II London, Rick Braithwaite, a former Royal Air Force pilot and Cambridge-educated engineer, accepts a teaching position that puts him in charge of a class of angry, unmotivated, bigoted white teenagers whom the system has mostly abandoned. When his efforts to reach these troubled students are met with threats, suspicion, and derision, Braithwaite takes a radical new approach. He will treat his students as people poised to enter the adult world. He will teach them to respect themselves and to call him "Sir." He will open up vistas before them that they never knew existed. And over the course of a remarkable year, he will touch the lives of his students in extraordinary ways, even as they in turn, unexpectedly and profoundly, touch his.

Based on actual events in the author's life, "To Sir, With Love "is a powerfully moving story that celebrates courage, commitment, and vision, and is the inspiration for the classic film starring Sidney Poitier.

Fifth printing, August 1982

E. R. Braithwaite was born 1920 in British Guiana and educated in British Guiana and the United States. He served in the R. A. F. His publications include To Sir with Love: Experiences While Teaching in a London School (1959); Paid Servant: A Report about Welfare Work in London (1962); A Kind of Home-Coming: A Visit to Africa (1963); A Choice of Straws (1965).