Principal Joe Clark

Lucy and Corbett are talking about the most famous or infamous Principal of the 80's, Joe Clark.  "They used to call be Crazy Joe, well now they can call me Batman!"  does seem to be the theme for the show.  They talk about the film Lean on Me and what it was like with schools in the 80's, fictional schools in the 80's, and the real deal schools right now.  Class is in session, so keep it down.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to What You Missed When You Didn't Exist. I'm Corbett and I am fifty-five.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Finally had the birthday. Do you feel old now?

SPEAKER_00 0:39

No, but well, the body does, but the mind doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Do you feel like you've experienced more things?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Oh, I always feel like I experience way too many things. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Oh, I'm Lucy, and I'm 25.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

That's right. You're the other half of the show. And this is, as I mentioned, What You Missed When You Didn't Exist, where we talk about things that happened from 1970 to the year 2000, which is a time when I exist. Did did existed it?

unknown 1:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Existed. And Lucy did not. Correct. So literally the best in my day type show you can ever listen to, because uh probably others. So this time around, it's back to school time, Lucy. And you're a teacher. And I thought it would be interesting to talk about one of the, I wouldn't say the most notorious teacher. He's really a principal. He was a teacher at one point, though. Like every principal at one point was a teacher. This is true. But we're talking about Joe Clark. Joe Clark, Joe Lewis Clark, the principal for Eastide High in Newark, New Jersey. He was the principal from 1982 to the year, I want to say 88. 82 to 88, but might be 89, because I think 89 is when the movie Lean on Me came out, which you haven't watched yet, so you're missing out.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

I am. I need to add it to my list.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

You know, it's funny, I was looking up Lean on Me and I was thinking, oh yeah, that's when Morgan Freeman got his Oscar. Like, no, no, he didn't get his Oscar for that, so that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Has he gotten an Oscar before?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I don't know. I'm not like the supreme knowledge of Morgan Freeman. But it was when he was it's when he really jumped out and became much more noticeable to the large-scale audience because I think I really only remember him from Electric Company before this.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

And you know, random commercials and stuff. But Joe Lewis Clark was known for walking around the East Side High School with a baseball bat and a bullhorn, calling out to his students, trying to inspire them to be better and do a better job. And specifically, the big thing that probably got him notoriety and infamy, I don't know how you look at it. Uh he kicked out three hundred students in the first days of him being there. I think in the movie they said it's the first day. I was looking it up, and it sounds like it was kind of a he went through and picked them apart who was dealing drugs, who was coming in late, who was never doing their work, that sort of thing. And this is 300 out of like 3,000. So 10% of his students were basically a problem.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Which is fairly hefty.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

It's a good slash and burn as far as that's concerned. I remember hearing about it as a kid thinking, whoa, that must be terrible in that third world country where that's happening at like no, that's that's in New Jersey. And like, oh my gosh, you mean cities are bad? And apparently schools in major cities are way worse than schools everywhere else, though I kind of have a feeling that they're similar, just more annoying because there's so many people. Well, just because I'm sure there's still clicks, I'm sure there's still a little separationism going on, and there's always the drugie guys, whether they're selling it or not.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

You just kind of run into that. But in this case, he went in, kicked a whole lot of students out. Uh, I think he he went to he didn't go to jail. He went to uh oh, I maybe he did go to jail.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

For what did he do with the baseball bat actually?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

In a speech, he said, if a drug, if a drug user comes in, he's gonna beat that guy bad. In a court hearing later, he said, No, I used it to inspire, take a swing at life and hit your home run and think, um, sure. That's that's more what he said, what he did, and how he he was trying to inspire kids to to do better. He legitimately was pushing for them to do their best and to be their best. He was a drill sergeant, apparently. I didn't know this, so he kind of brought that along with him. Now, I should point out later in life he was in charge of a detention facility where he resigned because he was frustrated that he couldn't use martial punishment. You know, so I yeah. I mean, he did give tough love to a lot of kids in a very tough situation, and a lot of them stood up and did their job and they went on to do good things. There's a lot of kids who came out to speak at his funeral because he died, he died at 82 in the year 2020. So it's been a while.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

He was retired in Florida by then, or he was he had retired to Florida, I presume he died in his home in Florida.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Anyway, in the movie, they they represent a lot of things really quickly because it's a movie.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

That yeah, that normally happens.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah. And they they make more things a little more dramatic. So it's hard to tell exactly what was happening, but there were several news reports that came directly from him that they copied. There's there's a specific scene, you know, they they used to call me Crazy Joe, and now they can call me Batman because he walks around with the bat.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

That's wild! And they let him stay for six years. Yeah. That's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Well, he also the reason why he did, I believe he was arrested because he locked the doors, the the emergency exit doors. He put chains on the doors because dealers would slip in. Somebody would be on the inside and open the door and let them in. And then they could go deal in the school, and he didn't want that in the school. So there's the only way to do that was to bolt all the doors down. And in the movie, they catch him while he's yelling into oh, walkie-talkie or something. I don't I think in the movie he does spend the night in jail. I don't know if he spent the night in jail in actual in in the real world. He was commended by Ronald Reagan, the president of the time. Oh for for helping inspire kids. He wanted to, you know, it was the tough love that people were thinking kids were wanting or needing. And in some cases, yeah, I get it. At the time, I was like, wow, this inner city schools must be awful. I haven't been to an inner city school as a kid or as an adult, so I wouldn't know. But it was kind of interesting because it it did seem as a kid, it seemed like this must be some other country. It seems completely out of character for us to go this far. Now, at the same time, they in the movie they characterize him as dealing with straight up hoodlums.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And he might have been. I don't know. It wasn't specifically on site. But he did, he he did specifically uh expel 300 kids for drug deals, drug use, tardiness, um, uh basically things that he wasn't and not tardiness like they were a few minutes late, they were skipping school, they were avoiding school altogether. He he did reform the school and he was beloved by most all the kids who came out of there. So I guess uh this is the part where we turn the show over to Lucy, and she can tell us how great it is to just swing a bat in the classroom to teach kids a lesson.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I just think it's so wild that he was commended for all of his hard work. Like he got rid of students probably who needed the most help, and even though they probably didn't want it at the time, they still had to exist and they still needed to learn in some capacity.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I mean, what was the the classroom demographic like, I guess? Because to me, it seems racist.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Well, he is he is a black man. I should point that out if you haven't seen the pictures. The fact that he was played by Morgan Freeman, I should point that out. He's now in the movie they point out that he was racist toward the football coach who was black.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Because he was like he's not living up to his race or something like that. I would say the class based on the movie would be like mmm, I don't know, 70, 60 to 70 percent black, and the the rest a mix of Latino and white.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

But I I mean that's really abstract because again, it's a movie. I have no idea what their real diversity would have been like. But yeah, you're I mean you're probably right as far as the kids that are failing are probably the ones who definitely need the more they need something. Maybe maybe kicking them out was and then that's I think one of the kids does come back in to like beg for his place back.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Because he he we you know, he can't be on the street. Yeah, he's scared and everything. And maybe that's what you know he wanted to see. There was also kids who were just like riding it, like they they were like 18 to 20. They were they were they had been in high school and just not gotten out.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Oh so I don't know. It's normally a case-by-case basis with kids. This past year, especially, I had a group of students that kind of acted like they wanted to be hoodlums almost, and I put my heart and soul into those kiddos, and sometimes, yeah, they need a little kick in the butt, maybe they need a different school environment. So they would go to the more disciplinary school, I guess, but then they would come back and be better off for it just because they needed that extra support because they weren't getting what they needed at home. A lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So you could have sped that up with a baseball bat.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I don't think I could have sped that up with a baseball bat. Students these days want to solve so many of their problems with violence because they think it's quicker, because that's what they see in TV shows and in their games and all this different influence that they see in the world, but they've never been shown kindness and what that can do and how that can change their lives. Having someone that cares, having a family member that's not in prison, having like someone to look up to, like huge, huge impacts on kids, way better than intimidation. These kids get intimidated all their life, so they are not immune, but they're kind of used to that. Yeah. So there's no point in the intimidation factor. Flip the script, show kindness. Like I can understand Coach Carter, because Coach Carter was kind of similar in that sense of, oh, I'm gonna show you the tough love. But it was the tough love in the sense of, oh, I'm gonna show you what it's like to experience some form of privilege. Let's get your grades up, let's not play the game until you guys follow what Coach says because you don't run the show. Whoever is here to help you is running the show.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Yeah, I mean that's well, Coach Carter was a good one too. Though Coach Carter, I don't know if Coach Carter was based off of a real situation.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

Uh it was.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

It was it? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

Yeah, it was. But again, similar concept of inner city school.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Well, that just shows that there's different ways for different teachers to approach different people.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Well, that's also true. Different kids learn differently.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

But this is also the time I think Coach Carter was in the 90s, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

But the lean on me was late 89. I'm pretty sure it was 89.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

Because it came out the same year as Batman, which was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

But no, no, it's just that that was the 80s and 90s, probably more specifically the 80s, was the era of the uh, you know, I can get to these kids with rap. And those those movies were so dime a dozen. I mean, just so so many of them that were like that. And have having a a a real sort of icon to look at is probably good. There's certain it's a certain part of me that says he did a good thing. There's a part of me that, like, wow, he kind of went a little strong on it.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I totally get that. Don't feel like oh Corbett's jerk. Well, probably, but for different reasons. I don't know. As a kid, um, because I was a kid when I was watching, I was in my teens. I'm like, holy crap, that's that seems so extreme, but everybody was loving it. So I guess it was okay. And they made a movie, so there you go.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

It's just weird to go at extreme situations with an extreme response. I think that just escalates it so so much.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

See, in his situation though, he was in you know, a s uh city school that was just in total turmoil.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Because I think uh and I remember this just from the movie, so I'm not even sure if this is correct. But I think he went from like uh he was in he was an elementary school teacher before that, and some of the kids who were in his high school knew him as an elementary school teacher and they really, really liked him. But there's a big difference between I think that's the maybe that's the gimmick, because with with little kids, you have to be a disciplinarian and like direct. You have to like essentially lead the the the herd in a direction.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

And he probably approached it from that same concept of these are just a bunch of children that don't have any abilities and they have to live up to their potential. So I could see his direction as far as how he's gonna take that, but I can't say much because really you're the one who actually is doing the job.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

It just seems a little extreme, but I think kids need structure, which is always a given point for any child, some kind of structure. Hey, you have meal times, this is when we're gonna eat. Hey, you're gonna go to sleep, this is when it's gonna happen. But most principals actually start off that way, they'll start with elementary just so they can work on those structures, and then they move on from there. In my experience, at least. But I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

See, I was always of the approach that I would give you a sense of responsibility by giving you the consequences that came with that responsibility. You know, you I basically treated you like an adult.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah. You you want to do it? Well, that's gonna because you you missed out on going to the house because you had to protest the school.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, and you didn't sign me out when everyone else's parents did.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

What a jerk. And that's that's the but that's the thing. There's consequences in life and you have to deal with that, and that sucks. Yeah, it was but it it definitely is a learning situation.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Actually, surprisingly enough, since he is a black man for the 80s, that's pretty good that he was a principal, just in terms of hierarchies and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Well, in Newark, I don't think it's a huge jump to to see a black man doing a major job, though I don't I I don't know. It's still kind of the the lapse over or end of segregation that was kind of coming in there, so yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

And most principals need their master's degree in order to be a principal, and the number one holder or the highest percentage of master's degree holders and doctorate degrees are black people now. Fun fact. Educated people.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah, well, they they work for it. Credential-wise, he had a degree from William Patterson College and a master's degree from Seton Hall University.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

And he got an honorary doctorate from the U.S. Sports Academy.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

The Sports Academy?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

It's an honorary doctorate. He probably spoke at one of their things.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

That's what they do with the uh speakers. Okay. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Fun little sidebit notes. Uh controversial to say the least, as far as what he did and what he was about. I think I really feel like he did have the kids' interest in in mind. I think he may have approached it from a way that well, the only way he probably knew how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah. I don't know. It just feels very like Rooney-esque.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Rooney? Yes. Like from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

No, Breakfast Club. Isn't that the principal's name?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Oh, he's the vice principal and he's uh whatever his name is.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

It feels like that principal is the same person.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

To be fair, that's kind of the normal teacher you would run into at that time.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

And see, why is violence the answer?

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Most most teachers, most teachers up to the 80s were taught with paddling as a standard disciplinary action. They can do whatever they want because of the teachers, they require absolute discipline and control of the classroom. Things like that. I mean, just the way it was.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Fear should never be the way to run anybody. That's that's my bit. Fear and intimidation should not be the thing that gets things done.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah. Well, fear is the same way you run buffaloes off cliffs, so which is dumb. Yeah, we kind of got rid of a lot of buffaloes that way.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

But it's fine. And it's back to school season. And so we're getting ready. We're gearing up.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yep, yep. Get your number two pencil all sharp.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Well, for what you missed when you didn't exist, this has been our back to school retro classic. Get your bullhorn and your bat out and go walk those halls.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Do not be the batman.