ARTech’s First Dance a Success
Chris and Andrew (Grade 08 / Northfield School of Arts and Technology) Originally published November 2003ARTech [Northfield School of Arts and Technology] is a project-based charter school, so the students have to do projects for credit. Friends Kyle and Chris put together a disc-jockey project at the beginning of the school year. They wanted to learn about disc jockeys and Chris’ uncle, Dennis Johnson, is a DJ, so it worked out perfectly. In this project, they proposed planning a middle-school dance, being the DJs, and performing in front of a crowd. Kyle and Chris had to put everything together for the dance, including refreshments, chaperones, advertising, and keeping track of the money.
We interviewed middle-schoolers before the dance and found out that most of them were just expecting fun and food. This was a new experience for most of them, because the majority had not been to a school dance before. As for money, they were generally planning to spend between five and ten dollars.
Lots of people showed up the night of the dance, October 24th, and that surprised us. When asked about the dance, Kyle said, “I was amazed that we had such a good turnout.” Approximately fifty people came to the dance, about twice what we expected. Students from ARTech weren’t the only ones who came; they invited friends from the nearby Northfield Middle School as well.
Door prizes, some donated, were given away every half-hour. They also hosted a limbo contest, in which everyone participated. The hardest part of the dance was the music requests, because it was hard to remember what songs everybody wanted, and the DJs had to keep a balance of what the kids liked and what was acceptable to the parents.
The profit from the concessions and the admission, totalling $144, was donated to ARTech for buying new books for the library. When interviewed after the dance, most people said that they had a lot of fun and the dance met their expectations. Kyle and Chris earned 0.7 credits each for this project, equivalent to 70 hours of work. They also completed numerous grad standards. They both would want to do this again, “because it was fun!”