To Sir, With Love. (1967)

Character Analysis

(With a focus on the aspect of risk-taking).

Film Synopsis: American Mark Thackeray (Sidney Poitier) recently received his degree in engineering, but cannot find work. To make ends meet, he takes a job as a teacher in a rough London East End school populated mostly with troublemakers who were rejected from other schools for their behavior. While the students at first see Thackeray as just another teacher open for ridicule and bullying, his calm demeanor and desire to see them succeed gradually earn him their respect. (www.google.com)

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Throughout the movie, we can see the protagonist Mr. Mark Thackery (played by Sidney Poitier) taking risks to achieve a certain goal.

The very first risk was taking up the job. He had studied Engineering and the job he was appointed for was teaching. In a time when racial discrimination was very common, he took up a job where he was surrounded by white people. In the movie, we can see several instances where he is mocked about his color.

We can see, that in his initial days of teaching he continued to look for other jobs. At the same time, we see him reading a book titled, “Teaching the Slow Learner.” This showed me that was still willing to take a little effort on the children that everyone deemed hopeless.

Instances in the movie showed that the students had no sort of respect for the post of a teacher or for education. He believed, it was because they were never told about why being educated or being well-mannered is important.

Another huge risk that he takes is of taking the children to a museum. A museum is a place where you have to well-behaved and silent and gentle in your conduct. It was a huge risk on his part because the children were not even close to being well-behaved or even silent.

The students rebelled against almost everything that was told to them by any authoritative person. They all considered them to be ‘old-fashioned’ and thus all of Mr. Thackarey’s opinions and instructions were always mocked.

We can see a small scene in the movie where Mr. Thackarey seems to be using the five steps of creative thinking.

1. Immersion and preparation- This could be the part where he takes up the task of reading the book “Teaching the Slow Learner”.

2. Incubation-

3. Insight (Aha! Moment)- For him, the Aha! The moment was when he points out the fact that they aren’t kids anymore. He used the fact that they would want to be treated like adults and that is how he started changing the nature of his lectures.

4. Verify- I think, he verified his idea or strategy by announcing that all the girls were to be addressed as ‘Miss.’ and all the boys were to be addressed by their surnames. He looked at the response of the students. He noticed how they reacted to it and then got an idea if this way of dealing with the situation would help or not.

5. Execution- I think it is pretty clear that his execution was in the form of announcing a certain new rule in the class, step-by-step. Also, by saying that he was open to anything they wanted to talk about, instead of teaching them subjects.

The MBTI for Mark Thackarey shows that his personality type is ESFP.

Extroverted- Mr. Thackarey seems to be an extroverted person as he is open to conversation. As soon as he enters the staff room he started talking to whoever is present there. He doesn’t mind meeting new people.

Sensing- He takes a lot of his decisions by thinking them through. He isn’t intuitive. The only one time that we see him snap very badly is when the misbehavior of the students goes to an extreme level when he says “ If you must play these filthy games, do them in your homes, and not in MY classroom! “

Feeling- We know this when he makes decisions based on what he believes. He says “I teach you the truths, my truth.”

Perceiving- Initially, he started teaching the students from the textbooks. It did not work. The children would resist doing anything that they were told to do. Mr. Thackeray didn’t hesitate at this behavior. He told them that they could talk about anything they wanted and he would discuss any subject that they wanted. He kept his word. He discussed whatever they wanted o and answered all sorts of questions that they threw at him, no matter how personal they were.

The immediate cultural capital that we would point out for Mr. Thackery would be his knowledge of Engineering. While, for the job he had taken up, his cultural capital would possibly be the different way of thinking that he had. No other staff member in the school had previously taken up this method for improving the children. Good manners could also be his cultural capital. Eventually, that is what he taught his students, and succeeded.

In short, the movie shows us tolerance, patience, wit, student-teacher relations, and risk-taking (being the major chunk of the movie).