What Can You Really Do With an Art Degree Besides Teaching
Arts education career options can seem limited to some. Many people recall didactics, in the traditional sense, is the only pick. In reality, there are many different paths an educator can follow to fulfill their passion for the arts and didactics. During my ain career, I've worked in academia, at a community art center, in museums, schools, and lots of places in between.
Below are 5 potential career choices for those who may accept decided to movement outside the classroom and onto a new claiming and adventure!
one. If you love being flexible and irresolute scenery, you might want to be…a teaching creative person!
The skills of education artists have a off-white corporeality of overlap with those of a classroom fine art teacher. In that location is a slap-up deal of flexibility needed, as teaching artists typically take more than one job or plan running at the same time. It'southward a lifestyle akin to that of a freelance author or consultant. This flexible schedule works especially well for many practicing artists because information technology allows them the ability to work on their own practice, while also earning a paycheck. As a teaching artist, you might be doing a long-term residency at a schoolhouse, running an artmaking workshop for a special result at a museum, or educational activity a weekly class at a community center. And, of course, you might exist doing all of these at the aforementioned time!
Things to Know
You'll be doing your own taxes and paperwork, and so keep practiced records! In addition, education artists are ordinarily treated as contractors paid hourly and don't go the same benefits as another types of employees (health care, etc.).
You'll demand to have contacts with multiple organizations and schools; ensuring your proper name is on their roster of education artists helps keep you in the loop for whatever potential jobs or programs equally they open up upwards. As I mentioned earlier, teaching artists often work at multiple sites, and so you may find yourself having to residuum vastly different projects at the same time.
Finally, you should know instruction artists are sometimes viewed as competing with art teachers. Districts that can't afford to staff an art teacher have been known to use teaching artists as a cheaper culling. The role of a didactics artist can never replace a staffed art teacher, but they can be a great collaborator for schools to deepen and enrich arts programming.
How to Get Started
A B.F.A. or M.F.A. volition show a degree of skill and ability in working as an artist. In addition, having a want to work with varying historic period groups and a range of media is an important aspect of this profession. You never know exactly what you lot might end upward doing for any detail programme, so continue an open mind!
To begin in this field, start past contacting the education section at your local museum or community art center to see if they're looking for artists to partner with on projects or programs. Connect with teachers and program managers at different organizations and open house events. And get to know other teaching artists! At that place are corking networks of artists on social media that tin can provide introductions to organizations or support later y'all're working for a site by sharing projection ideas. Being able to brand connections is an essential office of being a teaching creative person.
2. If you love education from artwork/artifacts and engaging audiences of all ages, you might desire to exist…a museum educator!
Working every bit an educator in a museum requires a condolement level with public speaking and the power to connect to a multi-generational audience. 1 day you lot might be giving a tour of ancient Egyptian art to a class of second-graders; the next, y'all could exist talking best practices in the classroom with English teachers. And you lot could end your calendar week preparation docents for the upcoming blockbuster exhibition!
Whatever the case, knowing how to detect an entry indicate with the audition and making the objects in the museum come live for them are essential. Being a museum educator means working with all departments of the institution, including curatorial, marketing, and facilities. There are chances to have a voice in the institutional mission and priorities and shape the public face up of the arrangement.
Things to Know
There are diverse departments inside the educational wing of nigh big museums. These could include adult programs, teen programs, teacher programs, and youth and family programs. At a smaller institution, in that location might simply be i educator on staff, and all of these programs would autumn under your purview. You lot could observe yourself stapling and stuffing folders for an upcoming programme and and then heading into a meeting with the board in the same afternoon. The job championship tin encompass a lot, and is well-suited for someone who likes variety.
How to Get Started
A graduate degree in art teaching or museum studies is normally a requirement, though sometimes employers can be flexible. Completing an internship with a local art museum or institution is likewise a smashing fashion to pick upward skills and contacts. If you've worked as an intern, it tin can give yous an within track to a position at the organization when one opens up. It can also provide links to museum educators at other organizations if you determine to move on. At larger institutions, in that location is usually room for advancement, progressing from a coordinator to a managing director and ultimately a director role.
3. If you love organization and thinking big picture, you might want to be…a schoolhouse arts administrator.
Some school districts have an individual or a squad in charge of arts programming, instruction, cess, and more for the art teachers at their schools. An arts administrator is no longer a teacher but does look at how arts educational activity works in concert with other curricular areas like math and English. You as well get to seek out and build partnerships with local cultural institutions. Someone in this field gets to have a voice in the larger curricular direction of the district and is an art instructor'due south all-time abet for funding and supplies.
Things to Know
Being the person in charge of arts programming at a district level is a vital role, only also can be challenging as you're forced to balance larger commune priorities confronting the basis-level needs of teachers. You're no longer i of the teachers, and this shift in office and influence can exist difficult to navigate.
When budgets are tight, and cuts have to exist made, you lot will often exist the ane chosen on to make difficult decisions for the arts. Still, you tin have a much larger impact on teaching and instruction and influence larger-calibration changes to the curriculum in a positive way for the arts. You lot'll also get to place professional evolution needs for the art teachers in the district and frequently serve as a facilitator for these programs.
How to Get Started
Being an art instructor is the master road to becoming an arts ambassador. Knowing the district and being able to speak to the needs and challenges teachers are experiencing makes you a better advocate. Getting involved in commune-broad committees and initiatives likewise helps give art teachers a better sense of what's happening in the bigger picture. Work on assessment or curricular projects with other teachers and administrators. Hone your skills as a communicator and facilitator, as you'll often be speaking to large groups of teachers and administrators.
four. If you have a passion for planning and connecting with a community, yous might want to be a…customs arts organizer/plan staff!
Similar in scope to the museum educator, community arts organizers/program staff must be able to work with a range of audiences and media, just oft without utilizing artifacts or artworks from a museum's collection. You will be working to connect students, families, and schools with opportunities for your arrangement.
This includes bringing students to classes at your site and managing teaching artists providing workshops or residencies at another site. Being organized is crucial, as you are oftentimes managing budgets, supplies, and schedules for multiple programs. More than anything, y'all'll be looked to as a connector for the various audiences and organizations in your customs.
Things to Know
No two days are akin for folks in community arts organizations! You might be filling in for a teaching artist, budgeting and ordering supplies, or promoting your program options to a primary on whatever given day. Staying in melody to the needs and priorities of a customs is vital for this role. What's most important to your audience? Complimentary arts programs for teens? Advanced technical or skills-based classes? Space for artists to gather and network? Information technology will exist your chore to find out and notice programs to come across those needs.
How to Get Started
Some graduate work in arts education helps, only more than anything, remaining involved in the community and being aware of its needs and priorities is a huge role of this job. Living in and being a role of the community make a large difference for organizations, and is how many program staff initially get involved. Contact the leadership of an organization you're interested in and volunteer or intern.
5. If y'all dearest thinking virtually theory and didactics, you might want to be…in college education!
Teaching at the higher ed level involves a dissimilar set of skills and approaches than teaching in K-12 settings. College and graduate programs in the fine arts and fine art educational activity are training grounds for time to come teachers and artists. Instructors at this level are a combination of full-time tenured faculty and function-fourth dimension lecturers. At the college ed level, you lot might choose to teach studio teaching practices, engaging with students on both technical and conceptual levels. Or you might work in an arts pedagogy department on curriculum, instruction, assessment, or theory and practise.
Things to Know
Full-time positions are difficult to come by and highly competitive. Entering as a part-time lecturer is more common and can be a nifty showcase of a item skill or expanse of expertise. Teaching involves varying levels of commitment. Studio classes meet for several hours at a fourth dimension, only frequently merely in one case a week. Theory and classroom practice courses can encounter one time or twice a calendar week just for less time.
Full-fourth dimension faculty are expected to be completing research and maintaining an active artistic practice while instruction. There are as well committees and program expectations for these faculty members. Part-fourth dimension faculty doesn't have the same expectations outside of the classroom, but they also are compensated at a lower charge per unit and ordinarily do not receive benefits. The classroom dynamics are also different, as you might be working with students who are older than you, have had more life experience, and also hold significantly different pedagogical stances.
How to Go Started
A terminal degree is oftentimes required for tenure-rail staff at most colleges and universities (M.F.A. or Ph.D.). Reconnecting with institutions you lot've attended is a good offset, and staying attuned to the specialties of that institution and how you lot might fit is important. Also, existence available to guest lecture or piece of work with current faculty can assistance get your pes in the door. Finally, being a current graduate educatee may provide opportunities to teach and piece of work with the establishment and requite y'all a foundation of teaching at higher educational activity upon which to build.
These are just a few of the opportunities that be outside of the K-12 art classroom for art educators. The field is flexible and total of other opportunities. If you lot're passionate and committed, you'll be able to notice your fit!
In what other roles have you worked within art instruction?
How did y'all get your start as an arts educator?
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Pedagogy University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors utilise terms in the manner they are most ofttimes talked almost in the scope of their educational experiences.
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Source: https://theartofeducation.edu/2018/01/29/january-art-ed-career-options/