Educational Bedrock: The Teacher-Student Relationship
In 2003, the (then) Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) supported teachers in creating a set of standards and corresponding curriculum for a new program designed to both promote the teaching profession and provide high school students with a solid idea of what classroom teaching entails. The resulting program, STAR (“Students Teaching and Reaching”) was instituted as a selective-admission elective for high school juniors and seniors in the 2004-05 school year.
For the past six years, I have taught the STAR class at my high school. I was asked to do so in 2007; my colleague who had been teaching the course switched to our freshman academy. The qualifications for teaching the STAR class include a masters degree and a minimum of five years of full-time teaching experience. I love teaching and gladly accepted.
Despite the reformer pressures on our community school classrooms, the marvelous truth is that high school students still desire to become teachers.
Each year, our district hosts a one-day conference for all of the STAR programs in St. Tammany high schools. That conference was today. Approximately 80 students attended from 7 high schools.
My junior girls.
