Ohio's Berea High is schooling tomorrow's Frankensteins

For far too many of us, high school was a purgatory of constant dodgeball games that left us with deep scars both metal and physical, and math classes that felt like they would never, ever end. (Mr. Carter, you told us that when we grew up, we would be glad we took algebra and we would use it all the time... But you lied! Why did you lie to us?! Why?!)

So I'm sure I'm not the only one who seethes with envy when they read about the Visual Effects and Design class that Jim Bycznski teaches at Berea High School in Ohio. (The class' official website, bhsfx.com, seems to have been hijacked by a Japanese site at present.) For several hours each day, the kids collaborate on various sculptures, props, masks, and goodness knows what else. And their work has real world applications, being put to use by indie filmmakers, local businesses, trade shows and more.

Let that sink in. These kids go to school every day, and make monsters. Vampires! Zombies! Other wonderfully gross and horrible things! And all the while, Bycznski is teaching them the kind of team-building skills and creative problem solving that they really will use all their lives. I wasted my youth trying to understand what the heck an integer was, while these little creeps get to make grotesque rubber boogiemen like Mr. Horribulus de Fangface over there!

And just to pour sulphuric acid in the wound, a lot of their work looks really good, too. Just look at this short film where a teenage mad scientist goes nuts in his laboratory. Those effects are lot better than anything you'll see in a SyFy original movie.





Fortunately, this is apparently the only such class in the nation. Let's just hope it stays that way. Your teen years are when you're supposed to be ditching class, smoking clove cigarettes out behind the dumpster and forging the bitter regrets that will follow you to your grave. Teenagers should not be having this much fun. We were taught that our monsters needed to be turned inward, so they could gnaw away at our very souls. If today's youth were to have a creative outlet for their angst and aggression, they might just grow up to be happy and well-adjusted adults!

Now, there's a prospect to really chill the blood.