SECTION 1 - via - School of Visual Arts

artworks motivate and inspire students own art products. The amount of time and attention
spent on each of the four disciplines depends on the students’ learning and developmental
level, instructional resources, and program emphasis. DBAE can be adapted to meet the
gender, economic, and cultural needs of the students being taught.
The National Art Education Association has established national standards for teaching art.
While these standards are not mandated, they do act as guidelines for many state curriculum
frameworks. The national standards are based on teaching curricula that includes the four
disciplines of art. Most state guidelines also include the teaching of these four disciplines in
various formats.
Hopefully this brief overview of what is involved in teaching an art education program that
includes DBAE gives you a better perspective of the difficult and sometimes overwhelming job
of teaching art education in institutions of higher learning. If an art education professor is
surrounded by other art education faculty he/she has a built in support group. If, however, the
art education program consists of one art education faculty member, as is the case in many
institutions, that faculty member truly needs the support of the other faculty members housed
in the department. Some art education programs are housed in the school of education, but
more often than not, the art education program is housed in the art department. As noted in
the beginning of this paper, either way, a lone art education faculty member housed in either
department can feel isolated and rejected. The following are three major problems that may
exist when an art education program is housed within an art department and some suggestions
for solving these problems.
Problem: The art education faculty may feel isolated from the studio and art history faculty.
Suggestion: Art education faculty need to participate in faculty shows, attend meetings, or be on
committees when invited. Studio faculty need to accept and encourage art education faculty to
participate in such activities.
Problem: Art education faculty are often out of the art building during the week. They may be
either in the education building preparing documents, attending meetings and conferences, or
working on committees; in the library doing research; or observing art education students in
field experiences or student teaching.
Suggestion: Art education faculty need to inform their colleagues of their duties outside the
confines of the art building. Studio faculty need to respect the art education faculty’s efforts
spent away from the art department.
Problem: Often the art studio and art history faculty, and the art education faculty do not know
what or how the other area’s curriculum is being taught.
Suggestion: Art education faculty need to inform studio and art history faculty, and visa versa,
about the curriculum being taught in their area. For example, art education faculty need to
know what content is being taught in studio and art history courses, not just a list of course
titles, so that they can plan curriculum that offers future teachers strategies for teaching
students K-12 the content they are learning in these courses. Another example is that art studio
and art history faculty need to be aware of the impact of President Bush’s mandate that no
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