Art Education, History, and Repono - 2/2 Lecture

Today's lecture featured professors from the Art Ed department, Art History department, and the community arts group Repono. The first speaker discussed Art Education and how urban education is highly regarded these days. She listed the numerous pre-requisites, such as passing the Praxis and taking both ceramic and printmaking courses, as well as describing a good candidate for this field: someone who loves kids and really wants to teach. Next a guy from Repono talked about the community arts and showed us some previous projects the students worked on. My favorite was a wired bust on a dress form that represented a female trying to protect her children. It was made out of barbed wire. You only need to complete 4 courses to get a certificate that signifies you as a community artist. This type of art is a very different type compared to the normal fine arts courses at Tyler, and the community aspect is not limited to Philadelphia. The final speaker, who is actually my Art Heritage professor, was none other than Dr. Kline! He taught us how simple it is to receive an Art History minor - you would only need to take 2 extra art history classes. Having a minor in this field shows that you can work in both an academic and studio field. It can easily pay off and make a difference even though it requires a little extra work. He strongly suggested this because nowadays landing a job is highly competitive and a minor in art history may just make the difference between getting your dream job and getting a job that you are less than pleased about.