I wondered this as I read a copy of Frank Portman’s new book King Dork Approximately, which is a sequel to the original King Dork.
What I gather from the book is that the main character, Tom Henderson, has been abused and beaten up at his high school and 10th grade is a real killer for him. He describes an assembly at his high school where a dippy therapist by the name of Dr. Gary says that all teens want to be “accepted by their peers and society.” Tom has different ideas.
On page 108 of the new book, he says, “Normalism is nothing any sane person would volunteer for. It is rotten, corrupt, terrifying, and thoroughly despicable, organized by psychotics, led by fiends, staffed by sadistic, subhuman monsters and supported by dim-witted enablers like the soppy teenagers Dr. Gary described. When you say ‘I want to fit in,’ you are essentially volunteering yourself as a victim, and when the thing you want to fit in with is ‘society,’ –well, as ‘society’ is just another word for the government, you’re basically begging the government to control you and use you as it wishes for its nefarious purposes, if ‘nefarious’ means what I believe it means.”
This book is a work of fiction but it raises the question: Are public schools now using boys for their nefarious purposes? I sometimes think so as I read the news and what boys are going through in government-run schools. Of course, private ones can be just as bad, but at least there is a bit less government interference. The PC rules that boys are subject to seem to run the gamut from being charged with being a sexual harasser at the age of eight or younger to being subject to unfair discipline practices and institutional racism.
I sometimes wonder if sending a young boy to public school should be considered child abuse, particularly if he is small, nerdy and doesn’t desire to be normal like poor Tom in King Dork.
Public schools for boys: good idea or not?
More from Dr. Helen:
Seriously?
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