Do You Have to Be Good at Art to Be an Art Teacher
In our series, Better Teachers, we'll explore how to improve teacher education in Australia. We'll wait at what the show says on a range of themes including how to heighten the condition of the profession and measure and better teacher quality.
Practise arts teachers have to be artists? It'southward a question that is oftentimes raised when talking about our chosen profession beyond the dinner table. In that location is an expectation that if we teach the arts so we must exist practising artists.
It is a presumption that doesn't seem to exist in other education paths. We do not assume that the English instructor is writing the next keen novel. Nor practice we envisage that the science teacher is a consultant for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Enquiry Organisation (CSIRO).
Withal, an assumption exists that arts teachers exhibit or perform their art. Where does this expectation come up from?
Hierarchy of subjects
According to the foremost abet of creativity and the arts, Sir Ken Robinson, at that place was – and still is – a hierarchy of subjects that exist in all Western schools. At the peak are mathematics and languages, followed by the humanities and, at the bottom, the arts.
This is somewhat unusual given that arts teachers are required to complete the aforementioned years of training as non-arts teachers. Some come to education later on finishing their fine arts degree, while others complete an education caste with one of the arts as their teaching method.
We could ask if this presumption of the arts teacher equally creative person is an try to raise the condition of teaching the arts in our schools. Do these subjects require professionals to be taught effectively?
The low status of the arts in schools has resulted in myriad challenges.
Artistic subjects are often seen as frivolous extras in an already overcrowded curriculum. And every bit "elective" subjects they are not ever prioritised, especially in a high-stakes testing authorities which emphasises literacy and numeracy as core components of our educational system.
For example, in NSW alone almost 9,000 students are enrolled in visual arts in yr 12, close to v,000 in both drama and music, and only 900 in dance.
While low compared to compulsory subjects such equally English language, for which approximately 60,000 students sit their College School Document, these numbers continue to grow due in part to dedicated arts teachers in our secondary schools.
At that place is picayune uncertainty that the arts crave specialised facilities and resources, so funding becomes withal another claiming. And, of course, there is the issue of the well-trained arts instructor who must possess certain artistic skills in society to help their students larn a higher level of proficiency in their chosen art class.
Early on career teachers face a plethora of challenges, but for arts teachers they face up the added expectation that they are maintaining a personal arts practice – the music instructor is in a band, the drama instructor directs plays, and the art instructor is working on their adjacent Archibald entry.
However, little research exists detailing exactly how many teachers practice their chosen art form outside of the school.
The University of Melbourne is undertaking a enquiry project exploring the mutual myths surrounding artists who become teachers. Starting in 2013, the researchers have been following 100 Victorian graduate art teachers to explore whether new arts teachers make art and, if they do, what bear upon it has on their instruction.
Anecdotally we know that many artists become teachers considering they struggle to sustain a profession equally an artist. Merely practice making and teaching art require the aforementioned prepare of skills?
A instructor has to have a certain mastery of an art to teach it. A trip the light fantastic instructor needs to know about the choreography of dance. A music teacher needs to know how to make music.
The arts are not cadre units; they are electives. They need to be taught past someone with a passion for their chosen field. Yeah, artists have this passion. But to argue that a person has to be an artist to teach the arts implies that mastery of creative skills and techniques equates to an understanding of current pedagogy when, in reality, they can be mutually exclusive.
Simply considering a person is an creative person doesn't necessarily mean that they are, or will exist, a good instructor.
Teaching as an art form
Peradventure we demand to move this conversation in some other direction. Let'southward consider teaching as an fine art form in and of itself.
Effective teaching has been described every bit "scripted improvisation". Good teachers require passion, inventiveness and imagination.
Arts teachers, whether artists or not, take fabricated a conclusion to be arts educators. They do not wish to live the life of an artist, to feel pressured to produce, to pursue galleries and theatres, to alive off commissions and sales. They want to exist a teacher, to inspire an appreciation for the arts, to encourage their students to achieve a higher level of proficiency, and to give confidence and life skills to their students.
International arts education abet Eric Booth said it succinctly when he wrote:
A teaching artist is a practising professional person creative person with the complementary skills and sensibilities of an educator, who engages people in learning experiences in, through and near the arts.
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Source: https://theconversation.com/do-arts-teachers-have-to-be-artists-64964
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