Student teacher Sarah Meyers during her Teaching Practicum.

Montserrat’s Art Education Program is based upon a Bachelor of Fine Arts education, making this an artist-based model of art education. We award Bachelors of Fine Arts degrees to our graduating students in a number of disciplines including: animation and interactive media, book arts, drawing and painting, graphic design, illustration, photography and video, self-directed study and sculpture. All of our students, including art education students, choose one of these studio disciplines in which to concentrate. Our teaching candidates benefit from the depth and breadth of high quality studio experience combined with rigorous art education study and classroom fieldwork. Teachers who are well grounded in studio experience, art history and liberal arts are better able to meet the demands of the art teaching profession.

The rigor of the Art Education Program at Montserrat excels at teacher training in the visual arts. Most of our graduates are employed within a year of completing the program.

Some of our recent graduates are employed in art teaching positions in the following local communities: Beverly, Framingham, Georgetown, Lowell, Lynnfield, Medford, Peabody, Randolph and Reading. One recent graduate is employed in New Jersey and three of our recent graduates are in NY to further their educations while others are in graduate programs in MA. We are very proud of the success our artist-based model of art education and we encourage students to explore the option of teaching as a profession.

In Massachusetts, art teachers are licensed at two levels: pre-kindergarten through eighth grade (pre-K through 8) and fifth through twelfth grade (5 through 12). The Art Education program at Montserrat offers initial licensure at either level. Course work and student teaching experiences are assigned accordingly. Preparation of public school teachers must include course work addressing the Massachusetts Standards for Teacher Licensure and the Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks. Art education courses offered at Montserrat are designed to meet and exceed these standards for teachers of visual art.

Students interested in the Art Education program are encouraged to begin coursework in the fall of the sophomore year after successful completion of the Foundation program.

Interested students can contact Diane Ayott, Chair of Art Education, at dayott@montserrat.edu for more information.