Is There Life After High School?

by Ralph Keyes

Original $1.95. Nonfiction

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Ralph Keyes is an American author. His 16 books include Is There Life After High School?, The Courage to Write, and The Post-Truth Era. That 2004 book illustrated Keyes's anticipation of social trends in his writing.

Keyes's books have dealt with topics in popular culture such as risk-taking, time pressure, loneliness, honesty, and human height. More recently he has turned to language: researching quotations, words, and expressions. "Nice Guys Finish Seventh" and The Quote Verifier explore the actual sources of familiar quotations. I Love It When You Talk Retro is about common words and phrases that are based on past events. His most recent book is Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. (The British edition is titled Unmentionables: From Family Jewels to Friendly Fire, What We Say Instead of What We Mean.)

Keyes has also written numerous articles for publications ranging from GQ to Good Housekeeping. An article he co-authored in 2002 won the McKinsey Award for Best Article of the Year in The Harvard Business Review.

Keyes is a frequent guest on NPR shows such as All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, and On the Media; and has appeared on The Tonight Show, 20/20, and The Oprah Winfrey Show on television. He also speaks to professional, corporate and educational groups.

After graduating from Antioch College in 1967, Keyes did graduate work at the London School of Economics and Political Science. From 1968 to 1970 he worked as an assistant to Bill Moyers, then the publisher of Long Island's Newsday. For the following decade he was a Fellow of the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California, then did freelance writing and speaking in the Philadelphia area.

Reviews

[Julio The Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Prison is the only place where the Untermensch give orders to the Ubermensch".---G. Gordon Liddy

Curiously, the late Watergate mastermind G. Gordon Liddy and I both graduated from Catholic high school and the U.S. Correctional system. He's right about prison, but wrong to limit his pronouncement to jail. I was incarcerated by my parents in parochial school, and hated it, while Gordon enjoyed the experience, probably because sadists admire other sadists. Ralph Keyes, half-pop sociologist, and half-humorist, set out to dissect American high school, and decide whether anyone ever survived it intact, by talking to graduates and teasing out quotes from famous people on their H.S. experience. High school is not a case of the blind leading the blind, but more like the dumb teaching the dumber. "Most American high school teachers are the product of non-competitive universities, and even there they didn't do all that well". (I had a high school teacher who could not identify the Battle of Gettysburg!) In fact today (2023) most teachers are the product of community colleges, another odd analogy to guards and policemen. High school is not designed to teach but rather to conform. "I'll never regret exiting from that government-run brainwashing pen". What about the experience of the student with other students? Keyes rightly argues that success in high school is in inverse ratio to success in life: "For those with the right qualities---the 'Innies'---success in high school isn't that hard to attain. Above all, physical looks are key." The "Outies" of high schools, such as the young Henry Kissinger just arrived in America "probably sat by themselves during lunchtime because no one would talk to them". Henry wasn't the only one who hated high school and went on to greater glory Keyes cites Mel Brooks, the director Mike Nichols, and Arthur Miller for proof high talent and American secondary education don't mix well. You will laugh throughout this book, feel sorry for those currently trapped in high school, and pray someone has the guts and vision to call for its abolition.

[Danny Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this book with the active understanding that it was written in 1976. It would be interesting to have a re-write now, taking into account technology— in terms of being a teenager with technology (texting, the internet, etc) but also the ability that the internet and Facebook has given us to easily keep tabs on and influence our high school classmates (Facebook stalk?). That would actually be a fascinating second edition.

Most of what this book had to say was very much an obvious, Duh. If you went to high school, you're aware of most everything Keyes had to say. Maybe for some readers it's comforting to know that you weren't the only one who felt awkward in high school, maybe for some, it's nice to know that for the people that peaked in high school, that's as good as it got and that the second string tended to fare better in life. But most of what he has to say I feel could have been summed up in a really interesting 30 page essay, and didn't need to be a 200 page book. But maybe I just don't spend enough time thinking about high school to understand.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

helping people with learning disabilities and mental health diagnoses navigate the transition between high school, higher education, and adult life.THough I couldn't imagine my son slogging through its 250 pages, there were important insights, like the chapter "medications without mom", that are important considerations even leaving home for a weekend.

[Sam Pochucha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty boring. Hard to believe so many people stay so hung up on high school after they leave it.