If you've read any of my earlier posts, you know that the Golden Hour is how I view that first teaching hour of the school year, the most precious hour of all of them. It's the time when I get to imprint on my students my goals, expectations, systems, and communication techniques for the entire year.
It's also a time when I impress upon them my distilled vision of how I want them to carry themselves in our room.
S.T.A.R. was not an overnight design. It was distilled over several years. The five components of S.T.A.R. (sit like you're smart, know when to start and stop, track the talker, asked and answer questions, and do respectful things and people will respect you) were the top of my list as far as behaviors I wanted to cultivate in my classroom.
For that matter, they were the qualities I wanted to see when I looked in a mirror.
I could easily connect anything musical I taught at any level to some element of S.T.A.R. – and I often did.
While it only took me about five minutes during that Golden Hour to introduce S.T.A.R., I'm dedicating a more detailed post to each of the points in hopes to amplify my feelings on each of the character traits.
Anybody can come up with their own S.T.A.R. .
What requires more rigor is to honestly self-examine your own behaviors as a teacher as well as the behaviors you want to see grow in your students. It's easy to find some kind of mnemonic device to reinforce with your students.
I’m tempted to say that the skills and concepts found in S.T.A.R. are more critical for the personal and musical advancement of your students than anything you’ll find in the national standards but I’ll resist the lure.
What I will say is that if you get your kids practicing the truisms contained in S.T.A.R., their success – as well as yours – will be grounded in skills and habits rather than luck.
The important thing is to take action: examine your value system and character totems, prioritize them, break them down into bite-size morsels, review, edit, rinse, and repeat until it represents the vision you have for establishing your students’ habits.
Next up: “S.T.A.R.: Sit Like You're Smart - Part 1”.
It's also a time when I impress upon them my distilled vision of how I want them to carry themselves in our room.
S.T.A.R. was not an overnight design. It was distilled over several years. The five components of S.T.A.R. (sit like you're smart, know when to start and stop, track the talker, asked and answer questions, and do respectful things and people will respect you) were the top of my list as far as behaviors I wanted to cultivate in my classroom.
For that matter, they were the qualities I wanted to see when I looked in a mirror.
I could easily connect anything musical I taught at any level to some element of S.T.A.R. – and I often did.
While it only took me about five minutes during that Golden Hour to introduce S.T.A.R., I'm dedicating a more detailed post to each of the points in hopes to amplify my feelings on each of the character traits.
Anybody can come up with their own S.T.A.R. .
What requires more rigor is to honestly self-examine your own behaviors as a teacher as well as the behaviors you want to see grow in your students. It's easy to find some kind of mnemonic device to reinforce with your students.
I’m tempted to say that the skills and concepts found in S.T.A.R. are more critical for the personal and musical advancement of your students than anything you’ll find in the national standards but I’ll resist the lure.
What I will say is that if you get your kids practicing the truisms contained in S.T.A.R., their success – as well as yours – will be grounded in skills and habits rather than luck.
The important thing is to take action: examine your value system and character totems, prioritize them, break them down into bite-size morsels, review, edit, rinse, and repeat until it represents the vision you have for establishing your students’ habits.
Next up: “S.T.A.R.: Sit Like You're Smart - Part 1”.
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