Is there life after high school? by Ralph Keyes

Is there life after high school? Reviews

• 
  Julio Pino

  "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 once 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

  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

  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.