Want To Be an Art Teacher? 10 Realities You Must Know About Teaching Art

Want to Be an Art Teacher? 10 Realities You MUST Know!

Thinking about becoming an elementary art teacher or a middle school art teacher? Teaching art is a rewarding career, but there are some realities of being an art teacher that you should know before diving in! In this video, I’ll share 10 things no one tells you about being an art teacher, including:

🎨 Classroom Management in the Art Room – Handling student behavior on your own
🎨 The Reality of Art Budgets – Many schools have low art budgets 😢
🎨 Short Planning & Class Time – You won’t have as much time as you think!
🎨 The Emotional Roller Coaster – Why the school year has extreme highs and lows
🎨 Extra Duties Beyond Teaching Art – Think bus duty, cafeteria duty, tutoring, and more
🎨 Why Organization is a Must – Managing art supplies and materials efficiently
🎨 The Time Commitment – Art teachers spend extra time setting up and cleaning up
🎨 Feeling Isolated as the Only Art Teacher – How to handle being the only visual arts educator in a school

If you’re considering an art education career or already teaching and feeling overwhelmed, this video is for you! I’ll give honest advice for new art teachers so you know exactly what to expect.

WATCH NEXT- 10 Biggest Challenges of Elementary Art Teachers

Looking for ways to improve your elementary art classroom management and make your job easier? Want to feel less alone in this crazy career? I am an experienced elementary art teacher and I make videos for art teachers like you every single week.

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Check out these Managing the Mess Videos-(new videos post weekly)

* Art Room Inventory- Preparing Your Art Class Orders

* Tips to Get You to the End of the School Year- Managing Mental/ Physical Health and School Stress

* How I Start my Elementary Art Classes

* Repetition and Repeating Your Directions as a Teacher- What is the Difference and How to STOP?

* 10 Misconceptions I held as a New Art Teacher

* Do YOU Give Good Directions? (8 Tips to Help Improve Your Communication with Students)

* Podcasts and Music in the Art Room

* Routines to Teach at the Beginning of the School Year in the Elementary Art Room

* How to Learn Student Names

* Book Review- Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers

* Elementary Art Behavior Management Plan

* How to Teach Art Room Rules

* Do You Know How to Start Art? My Guide to the Beginning of an Elementary Art Class 2023

* How to Avoid Clean Up Chaos in the Elementary Art Room

* Chair Socks for the Classroom

* How to Add Colored Seat Tops to Stools

* Elementary Art Room Jobs

* How to Line Up Students

*Managing the Artwork- Elementary Art Teachers Guide to Organizing Student Artwork in the Art Room

* 8 Tips to Help English Language Learners in the Elementary Art Room

* Talking with Kids about Art

* What Works- Student Behavior Management in the Elementary Art Room

* What Doesn’t Work- Student Behavior Management in the Elementary Art Room

* Managing the Printmaking

* Teacher Favorites- Elementary Art Teacher’s Favorite Teacher Tools

* Ketchup and Pickle Day

* Managing the Student Bathroom Breaks

* How to Prepare for a Substitute as an Elementary Art Teacher

* Art Teacher Organization

* Managing the Kiln- How to Fire a Kiln (Manual Sitter and Digital Controller)

* I am an Amazon Affilate and receive a small commission if you purchase items from my Amazon links.

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[GordonGavin]

The best thing about this job is we have the ultimate level of autonomy. Full control over our room and curriculum.

[carocutt]

Thank you for sharing the realities of teaching art. Whenever someone asks why I can’t get all my work done in the contractual hours, I will now refer them to this video.
Thank you, you have been a huge help! ❤

[malanamarie]

I just finished an AAS in Graphic Design which was a HUGE mistake there are way too many graphic designers. Anyway I’ve been looking into becoming a paraprofessional and being a freelance graphic artist on the side. While looking at the job listings I noticed an elementary art teach opening which intrigued me. I would have to go back to school, but I could go to school while being a para which would help me gain experience working with students and managing behaviors. I never really thought about it until now… I’m not sure why since my whole life I have wanted to work in pediatrics but I ended up going the creative path. Art education sounds like the perfect job for me. Managing a classroom would be a new one. I am also really scared of how I’ve seen kids behaving at school in the past few years, but it could be worth me pursuing!

[xueyingpei]

Your talk is so real and spot-on! After graduating from the UK, I went back to China and worked as a primary school art teacher for 3 years. Everything you mentioned—I’ve been through too! Stuff like standing duty at the school gate or canteen, or staying late for exhibitions or art tasks to “show” the school’s image. Each time, it meant working extra hard for days. What drained me most was that art always felt like an extra subject—low budget, extra random tasks anytime, and whenever other subjects needed something to display, they’d just ask the art teachers to do it. It felt like no one cared about us except when they needed us!

But seeing kids loving art class kept me going. Btw, I watch your videos to brush up on my English. I stayed in China too long after graduating and didn’t get to use it much, so now I’m in Australia trying to start my art teacher journey again. Your videos help me remember words I forgot ages ago—I take notes every day!
Hope I can get back into teaching art here soon. Thanks for all you share!！！

[Pebblesthewizard]

You're an introvert? Same here! I've been considering becoming an art teacher for a while but have been afraid to commit to the journey because I am VERY introverted. I'm worried that I'll feel too overwhelmed with the large workload and noise. How do you manage your introverted-ness?

[CrayolaLearning]

great advice for anyone considering becoming an art teacher!

[luveiia_arts]

I’m 19 and still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I’ve always liked art, it’s been a big hobby of mine all throughout middle and high school. I’ve had being a teacher in the back of my mind but always shot it down because I’m very shy. A family friend is going into art education and it sort of clicked for me that that was an option. Now doing some more research to see if it’s the right fit for me. I’d love to teach all different types of mediums and digital arts

[makaelahuntsinger]

I am a teacher on special assingment for Visual and Performing arts. I spent 25 years in theatre classroom. I find your videos so helpful as I am learning more about teaching visual arts! Thank you!

[xtti_x]

I am applying for my art education study in Zurich, Switzerland. I can't wait to fulfill my dream and work with kids. Thank you for your video!

[BusyBeadBoutique]

I appreciate your channel so very much! Thank you for taking the time to make great videos that help, support & encourage us fellow Art Teachers!! I teach at a Private School, teaching art to students in grades PreK through 10th grade. One thing that helped me not become overwhelmed in creating curriculum for all of those grade levels was to incorporate a bit of art history into our program. Each month I select several artists to focus on, breaking it down often by week, and then basing projects around that particular artists style/technique/medium. All grades can participate, however depending upon the age, the projects can obviously be more simplistic or advanced. The fun in this for me as the teacher also comes into seeing these inspired artist creations, varying from student to student but also looking like "curated collections". For any other Art Teacher out there who covers 12 grade levels, maybe this can serve as an idea in helping you as well, not get overwhelmed in creating a multitude of projects/plans. Blessings, Sommer

[brgkotme]

What a calming and well spoken delivery you have! Thank you for such an informative video. I am currently an after school art teacher and looking into possibly pursuing it as a full time role. Your videos are incredibly helpful, and I'd imagine your students respond really well to your teaching style.

[arielp.]

I’m a general ed teacher looking to teach art in the future. This is very helpful!

[blueblousedesigns]

NASCO has catalogs for different classroom types. The Art Teacher's catalog has a wealth of bulk art supplies. When I went to high school, my art teacher wanted me to help pick out some things for her class from the art teacher's version of the NASCO catalog. I had another teacher show me a copy of the Special Education NASCO catalog (this one has a lot of nice adaptive school supplies, in bulk, to choose from)

[aliaalbadi]

I rarely write comments on youtube. But I can't help but to write for you how I appreciate every tip given in your channel, , thank you again for this great video, I really appreciate your valuable tips and tricks🌼🌼🌼

[kathyvargas]

Great video! Can you expand on how to distinguish between artworks vs art challenges vs crafty-doesn’t belong in artroom etc? And how to find the sweet spot of prepping materials instead of over prepping to allow students to succeed? Ty!

[DottyDelightful]

This is amazing!!! thank you ever so much, I am signing up to do teacher training in Sept because I want to be an art teacher, I am in UK, so I think some things might be slightly different but generally the same, I am so grateful you made this channel and that it is super helpful, I can't wait to watch all your other videos

[BettyPaul-xz]

This is amazing, thank you so much, I am going to do my teacher training because I want to be an art teacher, so I think this will help, 🙏

[rsu]

How can you break into being an art teacher when they always want PRIOR experience in managing a classroom, PRIOR experience in a learning management system, PRIOR experience in curriculum development, etc etc. How can you get a art teaching job without experience?

[sarcasticsunflower]

I want to be an art teacher, however, im shy, and I’m not good at public speaking. Any tips? And is being an art teacher a stable job?

[Sanguinolency.]

Love your video. May i ask?

I have an interior designer degree and I've had some physical and mental situations where me working as one isn't a sustainable job. Because of that I've been teaching an art in local community and I'm applying to one of my student's school. Been there and met the headmaster who was very nice and very excited to have me there but since the new year enrollment is still in months, I've been doing freelancing like painting, sculpting, recycle art, etc. Recently I've had arguments with my parents being mad at me due to their view of art teacher not being profitable meanwhile and insisting me to get " real job " and not to waste my degree. Felt very frustrated currently considering i had a very bad experiences in past dealing with so many work overtime to the point i didn't sleep for weeks. And the sad thing is that my parents are aware of my condition and pretended that I'm doing extremely fine. What do i do? 😭
I know it's unrelated to the video and I apologize for it. There hasn't been anyone to talk about this since in my country Indonesia it's not a common problem.