High Life: A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : In Some Spots, School Year Is Even Longer

If you think you spend too many days in school, be thankful you don’t live in Japan, where students are in the classroom 243 days each year.

The average U.S. school term is 180 days long, according to the Congressional Research Service.

After Japan, the longest school year honors go to Italy (210 to 215 days), the United Kingdom (196), Canada (191), France (185), Mexico, Sweden and the United States (180), and the Federal Republic of Germany (160 to 170).

Dramatics Magazine has been publishing an annual survey since 1930 of the plays most often performed by U.S. high schools, according to NEA Today, magazine of the National Education Assn.

Here are the 21 plays and musicals that made the Top 10 list for the 1989-90 school year, along with the years they were first performed by professionals.

1. “Grease” (1972).

2. “You Can’t Take It With You” (1936).

3. “Oklahoma” (1943) and “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” (1967).

4. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1595).

5. “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1941), “The Crucible” (1953) and “Up the Down Staircase” (1969).

6. “Bye, Bye, Birdie” (1960) and “Little Shop of Horrors” (1983).

7. “The Curious Savage” (1950), “The Miracle Worker” (1959) and “Once Upon a Mattress (1960).

8. “The Diary of Anne Frank” (1955).

9. “Guys and Dolls” (1950), “The Nerd” (1988), “The Night of January 16th” (1935) and “Our Town” (1938).

10. “Fools” (1981), “South Pacific” (1949) and “The Wizard of Oz” (1968).

“After all is said and done, more is said than done.”

--Unknown

HIGH LIFE TO MOVE

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