The Art Education program at City College of New York prepares students to be reflective artist-educators who can teach in multiple settings, including schools, community centers, museums, and alternative learning sites. Students gain a critical understanding of the social significance of art education as they develop the skills to actively contribute to the field through their creative and academic work.

Program Commitments

Art education is contextual

Since art education takes place in multiple settings with diverse learners, we prepare our educators to understand how and when to use different approaches to engage their students.

Teaching is a social, political, and cultural practice

To be an effective teacher requires active reflection and critical engagement with theory and practice. Our educators are prepared to address issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other identities with their students and colleagues.

Making art is empowering

Art education should encourage learners to actively engage with creating and analyzing works of art in ways that are personally relevant, empowering, and authentic. Our educators design curricula that emphasize ideas in the world, using appropriate art techniques and materials to support those ideas.

Effective educators are compelling advocates

To best serve our students, we must be articulate and informed advocates for the educational benefits of the arts. Our educators are prepared to be effective participants in field-level conversations, conferences, and advocacy in art education

Program Goals

• Develop the necessary dispositions to be a reflective practitioner (i.e. responsiveness, improvisation, leadership, problem-solving, reflection, etc.)
• Understand the cultural, political, social context/purposes of art education in our society.
• Analyze contemporary and historical trends in art education as they relate to educational theory
• Reflect on the role of power, privilege, and identity as they pertain to the responsibilities of educators
• Write critically about their own experiences in arts education and about current issues in the field of arts education
• Create and teach scaffolded, idea-centered, developmentally-appropriate, inquiry-based, and social justice oriented curricula for teaching art in multiple settings
• Understand the differences between teaching in multiple arts education settings (i.e. museums, schools, after school programs, community centers, etc.)
• Employ effective assessment tools for evaluating learning in the arts
• Design and implement self-directed research in arts education
• Integrate their own art-making with their own teaching practice