The Art of Teaching Art

Deborah Rockman is the author of The Art of Teaching Art: A Guide for Teaching and Learning the Foundations of Drawing-Based Art, published by Oxford University Press. The Art of Teaching Art is the first book to offer a comprehensive guide for teaching college-level art, answering the broadly recognized need for a book directed toward the training and preparation of college-level studio art instructors. Due to the highly positive response to The Art of Teaching Art, it is currently being translated into Chinese for release in Mainland China in 2003. For additional information you can go to the Oxford University Press website, or to the Amazon Booksellers website, which offers the opportunity to read the first 22 pages of the book.

From the Introduction

The following is an excerpt from a paper delivered by the author at the College Art Association Conference in Philadelphia in 2002. The panel discussion was titled Pedagogy and the Graduate Assistant: Preparing Studio Teachers for the Field.

Until recently, a serious search of the current market revealed nothing specifically written for the preparation of post-secondary art teachers. Historically, those MFA programs that offered a seminar in pedagogy for graduate students interested in teaching did so without the support of an appropriate text. While there are numerous textbooks that provide guidance and instruction for students of art, the very different needs of fledgling art teachers have essentially been ignored, leaving them empty-handed. There are a number of books on the market for high school art teachers, but they do not begin to address the very different needs of the college or university art instructor. And it is important to remember that every one of us began our teaching careers from a place of relative inexperience.