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Art teacher skills: what to learn first, and what can wait

Nobody hires an art teacher for their best painting. They hire the person who can get a whole class through a clay unit without losing a tool or a kid's work. Learn the skills below roughly in order, and you'll spend your early years getting better at the job instead of scrambling to cover the basics.

19 open jobs

Step one

Gets you the interview

Range across core mediaPostings expect you to teach drawing, painting, printmaking, collage and clay. A résumé that lists only one medium reads like a studio artist, not a teacher.

Lesson plans tied to the National Core Arts StandardsPrincipals scan for standards language. Being able to write a plan with a clear objective, a demo and an assessment shows you've done more than pick fun projects.

Documenting student workGood photos of student pieces, with process shots, are your real portfolio. Learn to light and crop work cleanly and post it to Google Classroom or an online class gallery.

Step two

Gets you the offer

Studio routines and materials managementHiring panels watch your demo lesson for how you pass out paint, stage wet work on drying racks and run cleanup jobs. Tight routines are what they remember.

Rubrics that grade skill, not talentYou'll have to defend grades to parents. A short rubric built on the lesson objective, plus sketchbook checks, lets you explain any grade in a sentence.

Adapting projects for IEPs and English learnersAdaptive scissors, visual step cards and simplified steps with the same goal show a panel you can teach every kid in the room, which is a big part of the job.

Clay and kiln basicsKnowing how to wedge clay, load a kiln, watch firing temperatures and mix or choose safe glazes makes you hireable anywhere with a kiln, which is a lot of schools.

Step three

Gets you promoted

Teaching a college-level studio courseLeading AP Art and Design or an advanced portfolio class, and guiding students through the portfolio submission, often comes with more responsibility and a stronger case for department lead.

Digital art and design toolsAdobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Procreate let you build a digital art or graphic design elective, which schools want and few art teachers can staff.

Running shows and competitionsOrganizing a district art show or entering students in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards makes your program visible to the principal and the community.

Budgeting and grant writingArt department chairs and district fine arts coordinators manage supply orders across buildings and write grants for kilns, printing presses or artist residencies.

Certificates worth your time

Certificate	Best for	Effort	Worth it?
State teaching license with a visual art endorsement	Anyone who wants to teach art in a public school	A degree plus a preparation program, student teaching and exams	Required for nearly every public school art job. Nothing else on this list matters without it.
Praxis Art: Content and Analysis	Candidates in states that use Praxis for the art endorsement	A few weeks of review if your art history and studio knowledge are solid	Take it only if your state requires it. Some states write their own art exam instead.
National Board Certification in Art	Experienced art teachers who want a pay step or a leadership role	Most of a school year of portfolio work, videos and an assessment	Worth it once you're settled in a district that rewards it, since many districts and states add pay for it.

Licensing rules, exams and endorsement names differ by state, so check your state education department or licensing board before you register for anything.

Put it on your resume like this

Weak

Responsible for teaching ceramics and managing the art room.

Strong

Built a ceramics program for 180 high school students, trained 6 student kiln aides, and cut supply spending 15% by switching to bulk clay and reclaiming scraps.

Questions people ask

Which art medium should I get better at first?

Clay, if you're weak in it. It's the medium schools struggle to staff, it involves the kiln, and a confident clay unit reads well in a demo lesson and a portfolio. Drawing is the other safe bet because it underpins almost every unit you'll teach.

Do I need to know digital art to get hired?

Not for most elementary or middle school jobs, where hands-on media is the core of the day. At the high school level it helps a lot, and a posting for a graphic design or photography elective will expect real skill in Adobe software.

How do I learn kiln operation if my program didn't teach it?

Take a ceramics class at a community college or art center, ask a district art teacher if you can help load and unload a firing, and read the manual for the kiln model your school uses. Kiln suppliers often run short training sessions too.

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