Student Question
In To Sir, With Love, what is the public's attitude towards Greenslade School?
Quick answer:
The public's attitude towards Greenslade School in "To Sir, With Love" is largely suspicious and distrustful. As a progressive and radical institution, it challenges traditional educational norms, leading to perceptions of it as a breeding ground for delinquency. This sentiment is epitomized by a Chairman who sarcastically criticizes the school's "free discipline" approach, reflecting widespread skepticism about its unconventional teaching methods.
The public's attitude towards the school can perhaps be best summarised in the words that the Chairman who has to make a decision on Patrick Fernman when he was brought before the courts. We need to remember that Greenslade School, at the time, was a very progressive and radical school with very strange ideas compared to the traditional notion of schooling. Therefore the school attracted lots of suspicion and distrust because of this stance towards education. Consider what the Chairman says:
His voice was harsh and cuttingly sarcastic as he referred to the evils of "free discipline" in general and the particular practice of it at "a certain school in this vicinity." In his opinion such schools were the brood-pens of delinquency...
The attitude of the Chairman therefore clearly presents the suspicion that the public at large had of Greenslade School and the progressive methods of education and pedagogy that it sought to pioneer.
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