Introduction: give a brief outline of why you chose this career path
Many people recognize and think of art as a business, with very few noting the importance of teaching art itself as a more important business and a career worth to be chosen. In the recent past, professional trainings on arts have been taking place in profit making organizations compared to the past when they used to be done in non-profit making organizations. During that time, art teachers used to earn very little and also a very small number of people appreciated art and its work.
Even though interest in art has grown in recent years, many people still do not consider art a career worth choosing. However, due to its increased opportunities lately, many people have discovered that you don’t have to do other careers in life in order to be successful and have appreciated that teaching art can also help one in supporting oneself.
Teaching art acts as an investment in cultural capital both for me as an art teacher and for the students whom I teach. Teaching art to my students enables me pass down my skills to those who would like to do art either as their main source of livelihood or just for hobby purposes. It also enables one to promote students’ educational advancement. For example, it helps me to identify each and every student who comes with their different talents and present them with different artistic and general academic learning models through which they can learn and appreciate life as well. No one can achieve this better than an art teacher (Smilan, 2007)
Finally, other than making money, as an art teacher, one is able to experience not only the aesthetic beauty of this world through art but also the beauty of life itself. Art improves quality of life by putting touch with the most subtle and inspiring aspects of our lives. Teaching and practicing art also makes it easier for me to communicate with the external world through drawings and other pieces of work and this has for a long time been a driver towards my career in teaching art.
Give an overview of the history of the profession over the last 100 years and focus on some significant changes which may have occurred and their impact on the role of the profession.
With everything in the world changing at a very fast rate that at times is even hard to keep abreast with, art has not been left behind either although it is still largely a reflection of our past. During the renaissance period, whenever an artist acquired the mastery of perfection in doing art, he or she was preferred by many customers. In order to fulfill the increasing demand, he or she was supposed to train as many people as possible so as to make sure that work done by his artists appeared as genuine and authentic as possible. The aim of these training was aimed at making each and every piece of work to appear as that which has been made using the specific artist’s hands.
As artists perfected their activities, they were elevated into becoming teachers of art. Teaching of art was thus embraced in each and every level of education. However, in the last 100 years this has changed particularly in many elementary and secondary schools where teaching has been greatly directed on those who wants to be teachers and than those who want to be artists. If one is not in favor of either, then he or she never goes through art lessons as it used to happen during the days of perfect art. As a result, teaching of art has greatly reduced and has also become difficult since art lessons are introduced in much advanced stages where the teacher has to start from the basics.
With new curriculums placing much interest on sciences and mathematics, time allocated for art subjects has been reduced and as a result many teachers have been rendered jobless or forced to teach other subjects which they are not interested in just to preserve their teaching careers. As a result, this has had a negative impact on the teaching career (Rebell& Wolff, 2006). Also general intellectual and academic assessments in schools are done using the main subjects and thus it becomes very difficult to identify and nurture students who might be more gifted in arts compared to other subjects. Laws and policies which do not encourage the growth of art have been an impediment to its growth and unless something is done growth of arts is likely to decline further down.
Even though people still use their hands to draw as it used to be done 100 years ago, new technologies which has been introduced especially by widespread use of computers has made hand drawing a more difficult task and some how old fashioned and more people prefer graphic designs and digital photography. As a result, computers have also been introduced in art departments across many colleges. Technology has also made the work of art teachers much easier since they can use features such as projectors to enable students observe and learn art techniques such as shading, brushing and drawing (Hurwitz& Day, 2007).
Hypothesize the possible future of the profession over the next 100 years. Give reasons for you hypothesis
Professions of both practicing art and teaching of art in the next 100 years is very much encouraging if the present developments is anything to go by. This is due to the fact that many people have already recognized that as other mainstream careers become oversaturated, those who chose art are likely to face much less competition from colleagues thus there is a very high likelihood of them succeeding in their endeavors.
As pieces of art become rare, people have been dropping the artistic stereotyping which makes them assume that one cannot make money out of art. Consequently, many have embraced art as their way of life. Many people have been forgetting that artists make millions out of their work and thus for those who will invest their resources and time in art, they have higher chances of succeeding in life compared to those who chose majority careers. It is important to note that the increased interest in art has of late made pieces of art very expensive to afford and this is likely to draw many people into learning art and choosing art as their career for life.
Conclusion
I am confident a career in teaching art will enable me reach greater heights in future. This is likely to happen if increased interest in art is something to go by. If more and more people continue showing interest in art and parents also encourage their children who love art to go ahead and pursue what their hearts really love (art), my career in teaching art is likely to be more successful and am not likely to regret why I chose teaching art nor am I likely to find myself changing to another career.
Reference List
Bachar, P., & Glaubman, R. (2006). Policy and practice of art teaching in schools as perceived by educators and artists. Arts Education Piilky Review. JO8 (1), 3-13.
Freedman, K. (2006). Leading Creativity: Responding to Policy in Art Education. Paper presented at the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education. March 6-9. Lisbon, Portugal. Web.
Hurwitz, A., & Day, M. (2007). Children and their art: methods for the elementary school. 8th Edition. Cengage Learning, New York.
Rebell, A.M., & Wolff, J. (2006). Opportunity knocks: applying lessons from the education adequacy movement to reform the no child left behind act. The Campaign for Educational Equity. Policy Paper No. 2.
Smilan, C. (2007). The creative art of education. International Journal of Human and Social Sciences. 2(4), 241-248.