Stop out-of-wedlock births and...

Bring back corporal punishment Emphasis on material wealth over education will have very costly results, according to motivational speaker Joe Clark.

"The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance,'' he told teachers this week.

"Show me the kid that is best dressed in the class and I'll show you the dumb kid.'' Mr. Clark is a highly acclaimed US educator whose work at transforming an inner city public school in New Jersey was so outstanding that it became a feature story in Time Magazine, the subject of two 60 Minute profiles and the substance of the Warner Brothers Film, Lean On Me.

A staunch believer that out-of-wedlock births, an end to corporal punishment and the absence of school uniforms all play a large part in the problems seen in educating black youths, Mr. Clark's opening address -- at the Bermuda Union of Teachers conference at the Ruth Seaton James Hall -- carried the tone of a rousing sermon.

Teachers were injected with a hearty dose of motivation to persevere in educating young people, with Mr. Clark insisting that there was nothing more worthwhile they could do for the earth.

"What greater thing can you do than to teach and instruct our young?'' he asked.

Stressing that he never hit any students with the baseball bat he has become famous for carrying, Mr. Clark is a proponent of corporal punishment and received overwhelming applause when he advocated that beatings would help to straighten out students.

"You want to stop violence in the black neighbourhoods?'' he continued. "You put a cane on their posteriors. They are taking over the streets, people can't walk the streets anymore. It's like little Beirut at happy hour.'' Recalling his personal experience of being beaten with the cord of an iron by his mother, Mr. Clark claimed that the method worked.

"She would put it on me so bad,'' he said. "But I'll tell you what, we didn't cuss out old people, we respected old people, we respected Jesus.'' But he also noted the difficulty educators might face in trying to re-introduce caning today.

"You know I never beat one of these kids with a baseball bat,'' Mr. Clark said. "These kids have Uzis, AK-47s and they would blow my black butt to smitherines with a baseball bat.'' "You are important teachers,'' he stressed, "the backbone of Bermuda.

Without educators our young people would find themselves floundering in a state of deafness and insecurity.'' "Next to a fortress to freedom and justice is popular education without which neither freedom nor justice could be permanently maintained,'' Mr. Clark added.

"The foundation of every state is education of its youth. The nation that has the schools will control the future.'' Noting a trend in the US of substandard performance by black youths, Mr. Clark exhibited a confidence that the situation can be turned around.

"As I trace this land there is one thing that I have become acutely aware of, black youths are not working intellectually and academically to acceptable levels,'' he said.

Joe Clark's message "But if they can memorise Snoopie Dog Snoop and Big Daddy Kane, then they can memorise their times tables.

"If they can take a round ball and bounce it off a flat surface and shoot it at a right angle so that it goes into a rectangular backboard through an oval hoop, they can learn algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus.'' Pointing out that blacks were at the bottom of the totem pole across the US, Mr. Clark said: "It is time for blacks to either put up or shut up.

"You can't walk around here with Calvin Klein jeans on your behinds and nothing in your minds.

"We have to motivate them, stimulate them and give them the direction that they need to become good vital productive people in an increasingly competitive environment.'' Noting the 70 percent illegitimacy rate among blacks in the US, Mr. Clark said: "That portends major problems.'' And he stressed the importance of a family structure which includes both parents.

Currently the director of a large jail for juveniles, Mr. Clark told teachers he took the position specifically to gather data that would help him "have better understanding of the chaos and confusion that was ostensible among blacks''.

"... to the left no mother, to the right no father no family structure,'' he added.

Mr. Clark also applauded Bermuda's public education system for insisting that students wear uniforms and pointed out the problems when he tried to implement the same in New Jersey.

"In 1990 they almost assassinated me,'' he said. "The businessmen went ballistic and you know why? Because black kids spend an inordinate amount of money on clothes.

"You show me the kid who is the best dressed in the class and I will show you the dumb kid. Too much money on clothes, too much emphasis on the material.'' Holding that the tragedy at Columbine High School in Denver could never have happened under his watch, Mr. Clark advised local principals not to linger in their offices.

"You have to be ubiquitous,'' he said. "You have to be omni-present. You cannot sit on your posterior in the office.

"You need to dust off your rusty dusty and get into those hallways and classrooms so that you can be cognizant of what the heck is going on.'' In an address filled with motivation and practical advice, Mr. Clark impressed on teachers the need to give as much as they can and as best as they can.

"You play a crucial role in the transmogrification, direction of our young,'' he said. "Truly you are overworked, underpaid and denigrated.'' Mr. Clark said teachers were blamed for everything wrong with education.

"But I say this to you,'' he added. "Don't let the bastards wear you down.

Remember the law of compensation -- if you are to receive the highest good in your life, you must give the world your best service.

"Endeavour to live your life so well that when it comes your time to die, even the undertaker will be unhappy.''