Ohio High School Encourages Troubled Kids to Take Up Games

It's not often that I get to see a story about computer games as a positive influence, let alone a story involving public educators that (gasp!) promote innovation and worry about teaching our kids.

Dayton, Ohio is home to the Dayton Technology Design High School. Instead of forcing students to either deal with the boredom that comes from being above-average in public high schools or drop out, this school has done something that required both intelligence and initiative (two traits that generally don't come naturally to a public school administrator). They started a class especially for students which will focus largely on the elements of video game creation, from concept to finished product. The new tech school is designed for 16- to 22-year-olds and will cover traditional subjects as well as video game design.

If I'd had a school like this when I was in high school, I doubt I would've gotten the grades I did. While I graduated with a laudible 3.2 GPA I also took advantage of every single chance I could to skip school and I never did get around to learning good study habits or how to turn in assignments when they were due. Those were skills that I learned after trying to go to college, failing miserably, working for several years, and finally attending a non-traditional college (University of Phoenix) that taught through subject matter that I could apply to what I was interested in - work in the Information Technology sector.

While I don't know how long this program will last, based on the comments on the story I can already tell it's worthwhile because there are kids who would have ended up on the short end of the public education stick that will almost certainly be able to earn a quality education.