Making art is messy, unpredictable, and divergent. Teaching art can empower students to embrace the messy, unpredictable, and divergent in life. The Bachelor of Art Education, P-12 (BAE, P-12) major integrates art-making and art-looking to explore the powerful intersection of material and process exploration, visual and cultural literacy, and identity work and personal meaning-making in art. Art education theory comingles with practice as we teach and learn with one another, drawing on current, interrelated art education pedagogies so that each student develops their own, unique teaching philosophy in the process.
The BAE, P-12 major prepares students to teach as an art specialist in elementary, middle, and high schools. The program includes foundational studio art courses, additional media-specific art courses, art history survey courses, and three art education courses, including topics such as artistic development in childhood and adolescence, curriculum design and assessment, diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion in art education spaces, art education advocacy, identity work, and narrative meaning-making in art, equipping majors with an array of artistic and pedagogical practices to integrate into their future art classrooms.