Sacred DJs

I teach a dj class at Sacred Heart, just down the street from our office. This is a new experience for me, and an old one. Before working for fig media, I worked full time as a para-professional (another way of saying teaching assistant). I worked with students with behavior problems and learning disabilities. Part of my job would be to teach the students different ways of behaving or learning. I could go into more details about this job and it would be a blog in itself. The point is that I’ve had teaching experience before, but the students and curriculum are different.

I love my class. We’ve only had three classes so far and the students are picking everything up at a remarkable rate. We cover what I plan to take two hours in only one. The other hour I spend improvising and building off of what we’ve talked about and what students are bring up. It’s really freaking cool to pass on my knowledge onto others. It’s even cooler to see them use it. Friday, my students dj’d in front of their peers during lunch. After only three classes, my students made lunch into a dance party that will surely leave the school talking about them for weeks to come. By the end of lunch, the students who went from eating their lunch to dancing and screaming were pleading for one more song. We did. Those students who were once dancing in front of us, were now up on stage where we were and danced along side us. I was really impressed with my students skills. They demonstrated everything we covered in class, from making smooth transitions, to building the energy in a room through the sequence of songs, to reading the crowd. We still have a lot to cover in the class, which means my students are going to be throwing some AWESOME parties when the class is done.

--Jonathan Hood, resident dj