Reclaiming The Lost Year

Valerie Strauss:

One in an occasional series looking at learning in the middle and high school years

High school senior Risa Masuda has no time to let "senioritis" get in her way.

She takes Advanced Placement courses, participates in a senior project on low-cost housing, works in student government and helps teachers during class -- an experience, she said, that made her rethink her childhood dream of being an educator.

The 18-year-old credits her school, New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, Ill., with keeping her engaged during a year commonly perceived as the time when students snooze during lectures on Hamlet's angst, take requirements they should have completed in ninth grade, do less homework than in the killer junior year and bide time before the rest of their lives begin.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 2, 2006 6:05 AM
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