“Mental Health Should Never Be Shameful”: Confessions of a High School Dropout

Keith Keating is a high school dropout who received a GED at 15 years old in a psychiatric hospital. Today, Dr. Keating holds a doctorate in education from the University of Pennsylvania with honorable distinction for his defense. Although he accomplished this for himself first, he also was motivated by the need to prove that being a high school dropout never needs to be a limiting life factor. This speaks to his core belief that mental health should never be shameful. Dr. Keating is the chief learning officer at Archwell and founder of the Archwell Academy concept, where he utilizes modern learning science to support Archwell’s recruitment and global talent value proposition.   

Keith Keating’s first hospital stay lasted 30 days when he was 15, after his first suicide attempt. “There were kids at the hospital who were appointed by the courts to be there. There were others with serious legal problems and safety issues. Then there was me. My mother had just died, and I needed emotional support,” Keating said.  

After being discharged, Keating returned to school where he faced incessant bullying. “They were making fun of me for having a dead mom,” he said. His depression worsened, and Keating attempted suicide for the second time. “It was a cry for help,” he said. “I knew that I had to do something severe to be taken out of that unsafe environment and put into a safe one.”  

There remains a strong stigma associated with mental illness, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that mental illnesses are among the most common health conditions in the US. More than 50% of the US population will be diagnosed with a mental illness or disorder at some point in their lifetime. This means that one in five Americans will experience mental illness each year. “We only hear the negative stigma of mental disorders,” said Keating. “We don't talk about successful people with mental illness. It is imperative that we normalize the topic—only then can we embrace it as a part of life and stop the shame.” 

In the safety of the hospital, Keating developed perspective and a sense of the future. Over the next nine months, he completed his GED in the hospital. His father wasn’t happy about him not returning to school and warned, “You’ll be destined for a life working in fast food,” as if working in this industry was a mark of shame, rather than a vital lifeline of development for many Americans, noted Keating. 

What did Keating do next? He did indeed get a job in the fast-food industry and worked there for two years, before interviewing for a Microsoft Office trainer job that he found in the newspaper. Keating had no experience as a trainer, but he knew the software. He challenged himself by thinking, “How hard could it be?”  

“At the interview, I didn’t know what I was doing,” Keating said. They asked him to teach a mock lesson on any Microsoft topic of his choosing. “I was so terrified that I kept coughing to buy myself time,” he recalled. After a few minutes of incessant coughing, the interviewer stopped him. One week later they offered him the job.  

At 18, Keating traveled throughout the US teaching Social Security Administration offices how to use Microsoft Office 2000. He was terrified as he approached the reality of teaching his first class. “On the first day I ran out of the room crying, composed myself, and then went back in to teach,” said Keating. “Each time I taught, I got a little better. I started to believe success in teaching others might be possible.”  

Keating kept going. Six months into the job, he got the hang of it. “I started to realize I have something here,” he said. Keating discovered he was able to learn and teach content he wasn’t familiar with in a way that people understood. His idea of success grew beyond being good at a job and moved into more of a sense of vocation. 

On his one-year anniversary with the company, he had his first performance review with the interviewer who hired him. “I asked my boss to explain why they hired me. I was sure that I had to be the worst candidate,” said Keating. She confirmed his fears. “She said I was indeed the worst, but I was the only candidate with a car, insurance, and a clean background check.”  

From this experience, Keating learned that it is not always about having work experience but, rather, the significance of showing up and learning how to do the work. His experience teaching set him on his journey as a learning and development practitioner. “Through the first ten years, I didn’t understand the power of learning and development. It was just a paycheck,” Keating said. During those ten years, he held roles within learning and development, content design, web design, facilitating, and coaching. “As I continued my journey and personal education, it started to become clear to me that the work I was doing had the power to change lives,” he said.  

This realization forced him to confront his past: “I never told anybody I was a high school dropout. I’ve never talked about it until eight months ago.” For Keating, being a high school dropout was his badge of shame. “I can still hear my father: You’re a high school dropout. You’re going to amount to nothing.” 

These sentiments fueled Keating’s desire to prove his father and society wrong. In 2018, Keating applied to the University of Pennsylvania’s doctoral program and was accepted. When it came time for Keating to defend his dissertation, he had a choice to defend at the University of Pennsylvania or remotely. He chose the remote option and rented an Airbnb across the street from the high school from which he dropped out. “It felt symbolic to return to the school that told me I wouldn’t amount to anything—and for this to be the location where I would earn the highest educational accomplishment. After I defended, with honorable distinction, I lifted my middle finger ever so slightly to my high school and moved forward.” 

Keating rewrote the “high school dropout” narrative. He is proof that we must be the author of our own story. His story also reminds us that we own our story and thus, the past does not always write the future. 

Dr. Keating has become an accomplished leader of the learning and development story. He is the recipient of the 2018 Chief Learning Officer’s Gold Business Partnership Award for establishing and leading the Community of Practice (COP) Innovation Garage and is an LGBTQ+ and DE&I advocate. 

So that we can best understand Dr. Keating, as a holistic partner, he opens his story to the world in hopes that stigmas like mental health and being a high school dropout are not weaponized to limit anyone’s future. He attributes his success to one core philosophy: Never stop learning. In the dedication to his dissertation, he wrote:  

My work is for those who have yet to dream the possible and to those where the dream feels impossible—never stop.