I Went to A Large Suburban High School and My Experience Supports Paglia's Assertions on the Damage They Are Causing

Camilia Pagila is quoted extensively in the The Sunday Times article titled "American Psycho".

"Paglia believes the school Cho attended would have been no better equipped to deal with frustrated young males. “There is nothing happening educationally in these boring prisons that are fondly called suburban high schools. They are saturated with a false humanitarianism, which is especially damaging for boys.""

These monuments to school administrators and school boards called suburban high schools are dangerous. Read "Animal Farm" and you'll get an idea of the student culture they promote (and I'm not bitter - I'm one of the lucky ones that socially had a good place to fit in while in high school, but I saw that it was easy for many not to fit in at all).

I'll never forget when a classmate went "nuts" in science class in ninth grade, back when it was at the junior high (which was as large as most high schools in Indiana at the time). He was very socially awkward and he couldn't take it any longer. This very quite student just yelled and screamed. He had to be taken out of the classroom. I never saw him again. It was the first time I realized how bad this large school was for students.

At the time, the size of schools in this suburban school system was very large compared to most schools in Indiana. Now, with all of the consolidation of schools and this trend to building larger and larger monuments called school buildings, the size is very common. And it's no surprise that the number of students going "nuts" is increasing. And it's no surprise some small percentage of these use weapons.

Our schools need to start shrinking in size, have less monumental edifices showboating the "glory" of the school administrators and school boards, and start truly teaching and reaching out to students.

We need to de-consolidate our school systems before it is too late.