One may quibble with this film’s caricatured look and feel. That shouldn’t detract from its message. If tough love was perfect, it would be popular and pervasive. In the bare-knuckled world of an inner-city high school, it’s neither. Instead, it’s a thankless tactic to transform self-destructive students for the better, especially the ones entire communities give up on.
Is such transformation ever ideal? Rarely. Often, it’s merely incremental. Relapses are the norm, not the exception. Is it worth it? This film says that it is, particularly if it inspires even a handful of students to be better. By all accounts, Clark inspired more than a handful of students; he motivated indulged student and indulgent parents to change. He supported fragile teachers and confronted cynical administrators, who were more preoccupied with politicking than with straightening out misguided youngsters.
Bad Apples
Clark wouldn’t allow a few bad apples to spoil the bunch: He expelled those defacing or destroying school property, or were assaulting or abusing teachers and refusing to reform. Doctors, lawyers, priests, conservators, and soldiers understand this. They focus on the ones they can save. Why, Clark figured, should teachers be different?In interviews, Clark singled out the slide in standards of on-campus propriety as a social evil, blaming the decline of the family as an institution: “It would help immeasurably if children had parents … committed to their development as … vibrant Americans. … Children born out of wedlock with no father and no mother are put in a precarious situation as relates to becoming productive citizens. If individuals choose to have children out of wedlock, it should be their moral responsibility to take care of the children … not the government’s.”
In the film, Clark bellows at teachers: “This is an institution of learning. If you can’t control it, how can you teach? Discipline is not the enemy of enthusiasm.” They must go beyond superficial lesson plans. He tells students to stop feeling sorry for themselves, to take ownership of their effort, their success, and their failure, or to find themselves “locked out of that American dream.” He acknowledges the distractions students have to contend with, but insists that they work hard and concentrate, remembering what’s at stake: their lives.
High Stakes
Clark recognizes that as a disciplinarian, he’s a mere stand-in at school for the role models that parents ought to be at home. That doesn’t stop him from replacing a defeatist subculture with an uplifting one. As an ex-military man, he knows the sanctity of symbols. He uses the school song to kindle in students and teachers respect for themselves and each other.Any pedagogy must honor the adage: Different strokes for different folks. Students have different home environments and personal needs. All students can’t be treated on par. Clark wants young minds under his care to rise and be set free. So, if it comes to a choice between 300 minds who are, as he says, “rotten to the core” and 2,700 others struggling to learn against near-impossible odds, he knows whose side he’s on. Heaven help those who stand in his way.
Years later, former student Thomas McEntyre told NPR, “I never … got a chance … to thank him. We are your product. You did not fail us. No matter if you kicked me out, you did not fail me. You bettered me.”
