-: You'll need an undergraduate degree in art,
and then professional education courses,
and a teaching certificate in order
to teach K through 12 so it's essential that you have
that professional certification.
One of the ways that you can get that is how I did it.
I got my undergraduate degree here at Virginia Tech,
and I loved it because I was able to take
just so many different courses in the arts
and the sciences, which is really important
for a teacher in the arts, is to have
a really broad educational experience.
Certainly you need to be able to work well with others,
very important, you need to be sensitive to students needs.
And you need to be sometimes compassionate,
because sometimes students will express things
through their art that are very personal
and one of the things a successful art teacher will do
is to create a safe environment in the classroom
for the student to be able to express themselves creatively
which sometimes can even be something
of a catharsis for the student,
that they're really expressing things
that sometimes are very serious,
and possibly even hurtful to them.
I think any kind of internship, or any type of experience
such as working in a summer camp, volunteering
at an art center to be an assistant.
Those would be two things that I think
would look really good, anything that would work
one on one with people.
It could even be something like being
an assistant teacher at a vacation Bible school.
Anything that puts you in a relationship with other people
and particularly in a relationship
with whatever the age group that you're looking for.