'To Sir with Love' is The Common Core of Education

Sidney Poitier, shown here at the Academy Awards where he received special recognition

Carol Forsloff -The film was a box office favorite and remains a film for people of all ages, with a song many of us remember as part of that good feeling.  Its message is likely the true Common Core of education.

The good feeling remains as contemporary artists have performed the song, which has become popular again.  It has been reissued by Amazon, with ratings of bordering 5 stars, as customers find it remarkably good, just as did people who watched the original movie with the song back in the 1960's.

Is this a response for the corny, the good old days?  Or does the film and the song touch a chord in all of us that makes our emotions and our reason unite in common sound.

In the film Sidney Poitier, an African American movie star particularly popular in the 1960's with films like Patch of Blue and Guess Who's Coming for Dinner offering moviegoers Poitier as the hero that everyone loved.  In this film, "To Sir with Love," Poitier plays the part of the dedicated teacher who raises the educational standards of a group of defiant youth from the London slums, using love and good sense, teaching them to think, to reason while offering them his embrace of them as worthy of respect and good teaching.

The theme song of the film "To Sir with Love" is titled as the film.  The singer is Lulu, whose passionate vocal spoke to the hearts of teachers and parents alike as well as the moviegoers who saw in the film the ideal of teacher and the soul of the student's gratitude in the words of the song.


In In 1963 President Kennedy called for a revolution in American education in order to boost competition with Russia in space,  as dedicated teachers remain extolled as they were in the film "To Sir with Love" with Sidney Poitier its hero.

On September 24 of 2010 the Mayor of Newark, Cory A.Booker, appeared on Oprah Winfrey, talking about the crisis in the Nation's schools and how important it is to address the problems of education.  He said, "We should reward our good teachers" but he also observed that it is important to remove the ones who can't do the job.

How hard is it to remove a bad teacher?  It turns out to be difficult since most teachers are tenured after a period of time.  It has been a point of controversy for many years among the teachers organizations, where protection of the teachers' rights is critical but also the education of children promoted.  At least that is what is claimed.

But the former President of the American Federation of Teachers said this several years ago about his role, as quoted on a website concerning teacher union facts.  "I don’t represent the children. I represent the teachers."— Al Shanker, former president National Federation of Teachers

Critics also say that it is so difficult to remove bad teachers that the numbers reflect clearly the problem, as so few are fired in every state because of tenure.  For example,  it is reported that principals in Chicago say that 83 percent of bad tenured teachers “rarely or never”get fired.  Illinois also estimates that it costs more than $219,000 to
remove a bad teacher.


In 2015 the issue is Common Core.  Parents are concerned that children are being asked to study for the tests and that Common Core, or the newest standards being used across the United States to elevate children's actual achievement.  Some of the standards are incorporated in one of those tests called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), that parents say should be "repealed and replaced." 


Still those good old days of those good old teachers remain remembered in "To Sir with Love," a song that reflected what people value most in a teacher, the ability to empathize, educate and be creative in reaching the minds and hearts of children, no matter how intractable they seem.  The Common Core of love is the message of the film, that likely is what children respond to as much or more than method, as it seems to penetrate people who see the film, listen to the song and think of today's children as well as those of tomorrow.