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Analyzing the Past: Looking for Change 

The History of Ohio Art Education Credentialing Practice 

 
Mary Anne Zahner 

University of Dayton 

 

Abstract 

 This study brings the following question to 

the fore: How past curriculum paradigms solved 

problems? In the 1900s teaching drawing morphed 

into a diverse art curriculum. Then, Victor 

Lowenfeld found a developmental approach to 

understanding children’s art. However, Elliot 

Eisner and Manuel Barkan challenged art 

educators to think differently about curriculum, 

bringing about new standards for teacher 

preparation. Today, however, legislation and 

curricular shifts stretch the carrying capacity of art 

education practice. 

 

The History of Ohio Art Education 

Credentialing Practice 

Art education preparation in the State of 

Ohio includes a process of mastering the 

curriculum for teaching visual art Pre-

Kindergarten through grade Twelve (PreK-12), 

including actual practice in a classroom. 

Licensure, the vehicle for art education 

curriculum, provides preservice teachers with a 

plan to acquire pedagogical theory, knowledge 

about art and actual classroom practice. However, 

since 1900, the curriculum constantly changed 

while credentialing remained about the same. 

Consequently, shifts in visual arts curriculum are 

interwoven with state and national legislation that 

effect credentialing preservice art educators. To 

understand the importance of these issues this 

study follows the history of Ohio art education 

curriculum practice from the 1900s to the present. 

 

Curriculum History 2018: 103-114 

 Although this study is limited to 

curriculum events in Ohio it is representative of 

similar art education credentialing in many U.S. 

states in terms of legislation and curricular shifts. 

The purpose of this study is to bring the following 

questions to the fore: How have past curriculum 

paradigms solved problems? Does the existing 

PreK-12 licensure function to adequately promote 

a robust visual arts curriculum? What issues would 

occur if selective credentialing replaced the 

present PreK-12 Licensure?  

 

In the Beginning 

In the early years of the 20th century, 

teacher training was limited and eclectic. 

According to Foster Wygant, art was being taught 

in Ohio schools in the mid-1860’s. For example, in 

1868, Cincinnati Public Schools hired Arthur 

Forbriger to become the first supervisor of 

drawing. Classroom teachers, under Forbriger’s 

guidance, usually conducted drawing lessons in the 

primary grades, while classes in high schools were 

taught by Forbriger himself. Wygant also 

recognized the Ohio cities of Columbus and 

Cleveland as having notable drawing programs 

during the 1800’s (Wygant 1983, 44, 52, 53). 

By 1900, The Ohio Department of 

Education provided Provisional Certificates to 

teach in Kindergarten, Elementary, and High 

School (including chemistry, homemaking, 

mathematics, physical education, English, 

Spanish, etc.). Music and visual art were included 

under the rubric, Special All, meaning credentialed 

to teach all grades (Ohio Department of Education, 

n.d). Data on the number of credentials for art 



104 
 

 

teachers were sporadic until the 1960s.  However, 

a 1929 report on Ohio High School Standards, 

indicated that visual art had evolved beyond 

Forbriger’s drawing curriculum in Cincinnati: 

 

Art has so many phases, and so many 

levels, that it is difficult to outline any one 

content for the courses. There may be 

general courses in sketching and 

appreciation available to any who are 

interested. . .or there may be courses 

elected by those with taste and talent for 

art, whether design, representation, 

illustration, commercial art, painting, or 

art metal. (Winters 1929, 131) 

 

It was not until 1935 that the first Ohio 

Teacher Training Standards were established by 

the Ohio Legislature. Certificates (temporary, 

provisional, professional, or permanent) were 

given to eligible teachers and administrators 

(Cyphert and Nickelson 1984). It so happened that 

the year 1935 fell in the middle of America’s Great 

Depression, and a limited teacher force had to 

cover multiple certification areas in order to meet 

various curriculum requirements. Moreover, this 

paucity of teachers continued through the 1940’s 

as a result of World War II efforts. 

 

Changes in Sight 

In an effort to strengthen Ohio certification 

requirements, a Committee on Teacher Education 

of The Ohio College Association, drew up a series 

of reports to investigate the possibility of making 

changes in the requirements of the Ohio State 

Department of Education for the certification of 

teachers (Cottrell et al.1950). Members were 

concerned about the present emergency 

certification provisions, especially the problem of 

elementary education certification, requiring less 

than four years of college preparation. They 

believed that preparation for teaching required 

better facilities, adequate collegiate experiences, 

and a longer time than was presently available in 

colleges and universities. They also were 

struggling to find what was required to prepare a 

teacher in terms of professional and general 

education, as well as subject matter curriculum. 

Therefore, by April 1951, the Committee 

on Teacher Education presented a plan to survey 

Ohio school administrators, teachers, and recent 

high school graduates, to find what changes should 

be made in the requirements for teacher 

certification. Because requirements were more 

numerous for the Specials (art, music, and physical 

education), it was decided to concentrate the 

survey on these three subject areas (Committee on 

Teacher Education, The Ohio College Association 

1952). 

Survey questionnaires were mailed in 1952 

to 396 administrators, 898 Special teachers, and 

600 former students, who attended these Special 

classes and were now in Ohio colleges. The survey 

also invited respondents to write their comments 

and suggestions on the back of the questionnaires. 

The following comments were among the most 

repeated responses: 

Administrators said that professional education 

courses were too theoretical and impractical; 

teachers should be taught how to maintain 

effective classroom discipline; while in training, 

more field-work and practical classroom 

experience was needed; and, teachers of Special 

subjects must be able coordinate their subjects with 

the curriculum as a whole. Art, music, and physical 

education teachers felt that they needed more time 

student teaching; art teachers, especially, felt that 

they should be prepared for actual situations, 

where equipment and supplies were meager; and, 

all the Special teachers felt that they needed better 

knowledge of child growth and development. 

Former students felt that Special teachers lacked 

the ability to clearly teach abstract concepts and 



105 
 

 

techniques in their area of expertise; teachers also 

needed a better understanding of, and more 

sympathy for young peoples’ problems, interests, 

and backgrounds; many Special teachers were 

teaching courses for which they were not prepared; 

and, teachers needed to get students to think; 

memorizing was not learning (Committee on 

Teacher Education 1952, 26,28,32). While the 

Committee on Teacher Education  understood the 

certification problems of Special teachers, actual 

reform did not take place until 1980, under the 

auspices of state and national legislation. 

 This survey was concerning because it 

revealed skills that took art education from 

Forbriger’s drawing lessons in Cincinnati to a 

different skill set needed for future art educators.  

Members of  the Committee also knew that to be 

aware of the problem was to have some 

responsibility for it. From the vivid survey 

statements of: administrators, who thought more 

classroom experience was needed; teachers of 

Special subjects, who needed more time student 

teaching; art teachers who needed better 

knowledge of child growth and development; and, 

former students who felt teachers lacked empathy 

and the ability to clearly teach abstract concepts; it 

was obvious that a change in teacher preparation 

was needed. 

 In fact, the field of art education was failing 

to do the work that administrators, former students 

and the teachers themselves wanted done. Clearly, 

this survey showed that there was a failure to 

provide better preservice instruction, and mentors 

who would help future art teachers learn about 

teaching in the classroom. Such a response is cause 

for an argument to be made: Are preservice art 

teachers adequately prepared to teach in the public 

schools? This investigation into the weaknesses of 

art teacher preparation was prophetic. But, 

something much more engaging was about to 

happen. 

The Unveiling of a Theory for Teaching Art to 

Children 

In the meantime, Victor Lowenfeld (1947) 

wrote his First Edition of Creative and Mental 

Growth to demonstrate to art teachers how a 

child’s growth is intertwined with creative 

development and how creative development is 

intertwined with growth. Consequently, this 

approach to teaching children was a method 

resulting from the child’s needs. Lowenfeld 

provided teachers with an understanding necessary 

for teaching art in an age-appropriate manner.  

However, as knowledge about children’s physical, 

emotional, social, mental, perceptual, aesthetic, 

and creative growth expanded; curricular content 

grew from teaching technical skills to teaching the 

whole child. In Lowenfeld’s Second Edition 

(1952), he added assessment charts of age-

appropriate stages in each of the growth domains. 

These graphic charts prompted teachers to evaluate 

the progress of children’s creative development. 

The Third Edition (1957), included additional 

chapters on discipline in the classroom, adolescent 

art as a course of study for high school, and 

therapeutic aspects of art education, including 

children who were physically and mentally 

challenged. In fact, Arthur Efland wrote that 

Creative and Mental Growth “became the most 

influential art education textbook of the post war 

era. Its success was due to the fact that it provided 

a developmental basis for understanding children’s 

art” (Efland 1990, 235). 

 

The Birth of Art Education Research and 

Curriculum Development 

However, 1957 was also the year that 

Soviet scientists put the first satellite, Sputnik I, 

into orbit, an event that forced Americans to 

reevaluate their scientific capabilities and 

educational system. This national crisis brought 

federal assistance to education. For instance, it 



106 
 

 

triggered the passage of the “National Defense 

Education Act of 1958,” which made millions of 

dollars available for educational reforms (Zahner 

2003, 128,129). 

Furthermore, the passage of the 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 

was a primary stimulus for federal support of 

research and development in education (Madija 

1977). As the 1960s evolved, art educators began 

to plan for what has since become a benchmark in 

the field: A Seminar in Art Education for Research 

and Curriculum Development, also known as the 

“Penn State Seminar,” sponsored by the Arts and 

Humanities Division of the U.S. Office of 

Education. The purpose of the 10-day seminar, 

held from August 30-September 9, 1965, was the 

stimulation of research and curriculum 

development in art education. Consequently, the 

lasting impact of the papers presented by Elliot 

Eisner’s, “Concepts, Issues, and Problems in the 

Field of Curriculum,” (1966), and Manuel 

Barkan’s, “Curriculum Problems in Art 

Education.” (1966), resonate in the Ohio Visual 

Arts Standards for today’s licensure (Ohio Board 

of Regents 2007). 

The seminar’s Eisner-Barkan duo was 

fortuitous. Both found a discipline-based 

curriculum more relevant than Lownfeld’s theory 

of creativity and self-expression. Eisner, having 

recently received his Ph.D. from the University of 

Chicago, was entrenched with the theories of the 

University’s cadre: Ralph W. Tyler, John A. 

Goodlad, and Benjamin Bloom. All three 

researchers played an important role in shaping the 

structure of Eisner’s paper, and consequently 

Barkan’s response paper. 

Eisner modified Tyler’s rationale to 

academic curriculum, subject matter curriculum, 

and course curriculum. The first level, academic 

curriculum, included what to teach and provided 

the ground rules for planning.  Eisner warned that 

“the place a subject matter is to have in the 

curriculum cannot be professionally determined 

unless one examines the context, both personal and 

social, within which that subject matter is to 

function” (Eisner 1966, 231). 

In responding to Eisner’s academic 

curriculum framework, Barkan, Professor and 

Chair of the Division of Art Education, College of 

the Arts, The Ohio State University, argued that 

curriculum development in elementary and 

secondary art education was limited. Agreeing 

with Eisner, Barkan saw curriculum research as a 

translation of basic knowledge into an instructional 

program. He said, on one hand, “there is a massive 

task for curriculum development, and there 

appears to be ready resources to support it” 

(Barkan 1966, 243). On the other hand, art 

educators must be guided by an open theory of 

aesthetics, synthesizing this knowledge with the 

artist, the aesthetician, critic, and historian. The 

problem in art education is that “we have anchored 

curriculum almost entirely in relation to the artist” 

(Barkan 1966, 243). 

Eisner’s second level of curriculum, 

subject matter curriculum, organized learning 

experiences. He suggested employing continuity, 

sequence, and integration, and then using these to 

guide time and teaching sequence. He referred to 

John Goodlad’s (as cited in Eisner 1966) 

organizing centers to achieve important concepts 

and generalizations in a subject. For example, 

organizing elements of different levels of 

complexity could provide sequence. Organization 

of learning could begin with simple to complex, 

similar to different, present to past, and so on. 

Barkan's reply to Eisner’s interpretation of 

Goodlad’s organizing centers, was to use Edmund 

Feldman’s (as cited by Barkan 1966) use of 

humanistic inquiry as the source for organizing 

centers, by asking questions about problems 

confronting people, such as urban, suburban, rural 



107 
 

 

life, or, the effect of many forms of available 

media. These issues, Barkan (1966, 245) argued, 

had “force for engagement.” Barkan then turned to 

Jerome Bruner’s (as cited by Barkan 1966) work 

to address the issue of structure in teaching art. The 

discipline of art was different from Bruner’s 

structure of mathematics and science. However, 

Barkan argued that “there are controls operating in 

competent work by artists, critics, and others 

engaged in art; and to this important extent, they 

engage in structured inquiry which is disciplined” 

(Barkan 1966, 244). He then explained that a 

problem-centered approach required the student to 

perform the task as a professional.  

Eisner’s third level, course curriculum, 

included educational objectives “stated in terms of 

desired student behaviors as well as in terms of the 

content in which these behaviors are to be 

displayed” (Eisner 1966, 226, 227). More 

specifically, Eisner recommended that behavioral 

objectives be stated in: Bloom’s taxonomy in the 

cognitive domain, which orders behaviors in a 

hierarchy of complexity; or, Krathwhol’s 

taxonomy which orders behaviors in terms of 

internalization. Hence, teachers were in a position 

to alter the curriculum due to the availability of 

materials, their own competencies, and the 

students’ abilities to comprehend concepts. It was 

at the course curriculum level that the teacher was 

dominant. In fact, the data acquired by the teacher 

in the act of teaching could make better predictions 

for a specific situation than a formulation 

constructed for students in general. 

In response to Eisner, Barkan (1966) 

designed a structure for visual arts curriculum at 

the goal level, which embraced John Goodlad’s 

organizing centers morphed into Feldman’s life 

problems, making them organizing centers for 

criticism-production and criticism-history. 

Students could use criticism to evaluate their own 

work and the work of their peers; find meaning in 

the canon of art; and, read and review, perhaps in 

writing, historical accounts of art and culture. He 

was aware that centering curriculum on the nature 

of knowledge de-emphasized the nature of society; 

so, he introduced Feldman’s humanistic life 

problems as organizing centers. Feldman’s life 

problems, also the artist’s problems, were aesthetic 

in nature, and included description, visual design 

relationships, media, function, and critical 

interpretation leading to meaning. Instead of 

isolating criticism as a separate subject, Barkan 

used criticism as a catalyst for production and 

history. However, he detected problems emerging: 

the amount of emphasis, the class time allowed, 

and the order in which each component was 

presented. Barkan thought that answers lay in the 

knowledge of child development, social-economic 

conditions, previous learning, and the teacher’s 

expertise. He also believed that behavioral 

objectives held promise for the articulation of art 

education instruction, for they could be used to 

evaluate student involvement in production, 

criticism, and history. Since schools did not have 

the resources to develop the materials to meet this 

curriculum design, it would be necessary to 

develop collections of reproductions. Barkan 

added that materials would be needed in profusion, 

designed and packaged not only for use with 

students of different levels, but also to meet the 

various socio-economic groups. 

By taking a critical look at the 1960s-art 

education practice, Eisner and Barkan challenged 

art educators to think differently about content and 

pedagogy in preparing preservice teachers. They 

assumed responsibility for the future of the 

profession by designing a conceptual framework 

for K-12 learners to ask questions about art: what 

is it; what is its story; how do I respond to what I 

see; how does it relate to my culture and to the 

cultures of other times and places; and, how can I 

produce works that reflect a vision of my world? 



108 
 

 

Ohio’s Art Education Credentialing 

Requirement 

The aftermath of the “Penn State Seminar” 

led to a concentrated focus on the needs of art 

teacher education. In fact, all teacher preparation 

and certification requirements were being 

redesigned. In their study of teacher education 

redesign, Cyphert and Nickelson (1984) found that 

an Advisory Council of Teacher Education and 

Certification was appointed by the Ohio State 

Board of Education in 1967. The findings from 

studies developed under the auspices of the 

Advisory Council resulted in on-site evaluations of 

accrediting institutions at least once every five 

years, beginning in 1972. By 1974 the State Board 

of Education adopted new standards for teacher 

preparation,   

These standards required all preservice 

teachers to participate, prior to student teaching, in 

300 clock hours of field and clinical experiences. 

Also, cooperating teachers in preservice teaching 

experiences must have certification and at least 

three years of classroom teaching experience. 

Knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values served as 

the basis of the curriculum, and included: the act 

of teaching reading, as it pertained to the visual 

arts; teaching in a culturally pluralistic society; 

self-analysis of teaching performance; ability to 

deal with behavior problems; and. the selection, 

preparation and effective utilization of educational 

media (Ohio Department of Education 1980, 3301-

25-02). Cyphert and Nickelson (1984, 7) described 

the reforms to be “so sweeping that the State Board 

of Education deferred full implementation until 

July 1980.” 

Meanwhile, during the 13 years spent 

redesigning Ohio Teacher Certification Standards, 

the Federal Government passed the 1975 

Education for All Handicapped Children Act 

(EHA) (U.S. Congress, S.PL 94-142 1975). This 

legislation was important for preservice art 

teachers because it included a provision that 

children with disabilities should receive a free 

appropriate education in the least restrictive 

environment. With a multi-age license this rule 

meant that preservice teachers would have to be 

familiar with accommodations, adaptations, and 

supports for children K-12, who were on 

Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). 

In response to the influx of national and 

state mandates, faculty at The Ohio State 

University proposed a “New Undergraduate Major 

in Art Education,” with or without credentialing. 

This response was brought about because the art 

education program was now “determined by the 

State of Ohio rather than by the nature of the field” 

(The Undergraduate Committee, et al. 1977, 2). 

Committee members held that State requirements 

were too restrictive for study in art education: “too 

narrow, too brief, and too vocationally oriented” 

(1977, 3).  Moreover, art education now was not 

considered a major in the sense that history, 

chemistry, and mathematics were majors.  The 

proposal coincided with the view that the field of 

art education had potential for discovering how 

society learned “about and through art” (1977, 4). 

Instead, the new methodology of “art education 

had locked itself into a rather small, narrowly 

confined curricular box of strictly vocational aims” 

(1977, 4).   

This response from OSU faculty attracted 

the attention of policy makers, and in attempt to 

make the new standards and government 

legislation palatable to teachers and teacher 

candidates, The Ohio State Board of Education 

(1983) published a booklet, Fine Arts and Physical 

Education: Minimum Standards Implementation 

Series. Under the heading, “Visual Arts,” the 

document began by describing three areas in which 

the teacher must have knowledge: information 

about the developmental needs and capabilities of 

students in kindergarten through twelfth grade; 



109 
 

 

knowledge about new developments in art and art 

education; and, knowledge about the larger social 

context. 

A visual arts philosophy entailed: fostering 

personal development through art; transmitting 

artistic heritage; and, heightening awareness of art 

in society. While at the same time, students should 

also know how to express and respond to art (Ohio 

State Board of Education 1983, 29,40,42). The 

document also listed philosophy statements, 

program goals, scope and sequence, program 

objectives, and art content (subjects, themes, 

media, products, design, styles, and subject 

objectives). The most salient features from this 

enormous set of visual arts standards were the 

behavioral objectives for each grade and course 

taught, K-12. Evaluation included examples on 

how to assess the work produced, verbal responses 

to art, tests, student behaviors, and checklists. 

A section about children on Individualized 

Education Programs emphasized that subject 

objectives (student will be able to) are a primary 

resource to be used in the development of IEPs.  

Evaluation should reflect appropriate subject 

objectives, IEP objectives, and learning styles, as 

well as the development of social skills. Additional 

areas of attention when working with children on 

IEPs included providing appropriate instructional 

experiences; net working with teachers of children 

with special needs; managing class so that students 

experience placement in the least restricted 

environment, and providing extracurricular 

activities to all students (Ohio State Board of 

Education 1983, 55).   

By April 1985, The Ohio Teacher 

Education and Certification Advisory Commission 

issued “A Concept Paper for the Revision of 

Teacher Education and Certification Standards.”  

Members of the Commission recommended that a 

restructuring of certification fields be implemented 

because of the absence of academic concentration 

in, for instance, elementary certification; the lack 

of teacher preparation for middle grades in subject 

matter to be taught and learner developmental 

characteristics; and, the need for course work, as 

well as, ”clinical and field experiences in teaching 

and learning appropriate to the age level of pupils 

for each certification field” (Ohio Teacher 

Education & Certification Advisory Commission 

1985, 7).  Also, in 1985 the State Board of 

Education adopted Minimum Standards for 

Elementary and Secondary Schools. Since that 

action, testing in English composition, reading, 

and mathematics occur in at least three grades. By 

1990, proficiency testing was to be administered in 

grades 9-12 (Ohio Department of Education 1987, 

5). 

The following 1987 recommendations 

restructured certification fields: Early Childhood 

Certificate (prekindergarten through grade three); 

Comprehensive Certificate (grades 4-8, with a 

specialization in one or more subjects); and, High 

School Certificate (grades 9-12), with a 

concentration in a subject. However, the Art 

Certificate remained K-12 (Ohio Department of 

Education 1987, 8). As a consequence of 

credentialing redesign, the Visual Arts Certificate 

became Multi-Age License valid for teaching 

Prekindergarten through Grade Twelve (Ohio 

Department of Education 1996,14). 

Although art education was not affected in 

terms of credentialing, except for the add-on PreK-

12 license, it was affected by not having free access 

to teaching adolescents and early learners. These 

students were either taking more science, 

technology, and mathematics courses, or they were 

in early childhood classrooms that gave license for 

their classroom teachers to teach the visual arts. 

 

The Birth of Discipline-Based Art Education 

As the revision of teacher education and 

certification was proceeding, the J. Paul Getty 



110 
 

 

Trust, a private foundation with programs 

dedicated to making significant contributions to 

the visual arts, stepped up to help art educators put 

the Eisner-Barkan theory into practice. Leilani 

Lattin Duke, Director for the Getty Center for 

Education in the Arts, advocated holding 

conferences and collaborative projects to move the 

curriculum reform forward by applying what the 

Trust termed, “discipline-based art education” 

(DBAE). This disciplinary approach integrated art 

history, criticism, aesthetics, and production. In the 

area of preservice teacher education, contracts 

were awarded to several American Universities, 

including The Ohio State University, to devise and 

implement plans for preservice teachers (Duke 

1988, vii).   

One of the first concerns of the Getty Trust 

was preservice education, and by 1987, a seminar 

was held in Snowbird, Utah. Because DBAE was 

being accepted as a new paradigm for teaching 

children how to create, understand, and respond to 

art, it was incumbent on teacher education 

institutions preparing future art specialists and 

classroom teachers to teach in this more 

comprehensive and substantive way (Duke 1988, 

vii). The Ohio State University faculty member, 

Nancy MacGregor (1988, x), chaired the seminar 

committee in planning the event. The first four 

days of the seminar were devoted to keynote 

addresses and panel presentations on issues having 

impact on preservice programs. In the latter part of 

the week, individual university teams convened to 

review their current programs and coursework; 

and, develop plans for strengthening either single 

classes or programs to reflect discipline-based art 

education. Consequently, among the most 

important features of the seminar were planning 

sessions. As a result, university teams developed 

ideas for curriculum redesign which seminar 

members took back to their home universities. 

 

Legislation and Curricular Shifts 

After the support of the Getty Trust waned 

in the 1990s, national and state standards still 

included knowledge about historical influences on 

works of art, and the application of art criticism 

strategies to describe, analyze, interpret and judge 

works of art (Ohio Board of Regents 2007). 

However, the practice of teaching changed from 

teaching the canon of art to teaching about visual 

culture. Writing about the significance of visual 

culture, Smith-Shank advocated that the 

development of new visual genres and 

technological innovations for creating and 

accessing them, had multiplied the forms of 

information that were available. Even, ordinary 

objects, places, and events were visually-loaded 

aesthetic signifiers that had the power to “inform, 

modify desires, and educate, at least as well as high 

art, and in some cases, maybe better”(Smith-Shank 

2004, vii). Furthermore, the visual culture 

paradigm morphed into action for social justice 

manifested through strategies such as “the inquiry 

method, project-based learning and dialogical 

practices” (López, Pereira, and Raw 2017, 33). 

This mass of intertwining legislation and 

curricular shifts stretched the carrying capacity of 

the field of art education. By using the ecological 

term, carrying capacity, I refer to the areas within 

art education curriculum that must “operate to 

maintain efficiency and carry out its requisite 

activities.  New requirements, initiatives, or 

activities that extend the system beyond its 

established limits strain its carrying capacity” 

(National Institute of Child Health and Human 

Development et al. 2007, 28). The carrying 

capacity of PreK-12 teacher education programs in 

art education is most critical for supporting and 

sustaining future teachers with substantial learning 

which results in powerful thinking and flexible, 

proficient performance on the part of students. 



111 
 

 

To answer the question, what should 

preservice teachers experience in their education, 

Linda Darling-Hammond (2000, 12) led a research 

team in studying seven teacher education programs 

that were acknowledged as exemplars for 

preparing prospective teachers. Some common 

features they found included: extensive clinical 

experiences (at least 30 weeks), a curriculum 

grounded in substantial knowledge of child and 

adolescent development, learning theory, 

cognition, motivation, and subject matter 

pedagogy, taught in the context of practice. One 

obvious feature, which was not addressed in the 

study, was the close age range of the students in 

each of the seven studies. No study included a 

PreK-12, range. 

On the one hand, in the PreK-12 credential, 

the restructure of the teaching field weakens the 

already stretched carrying capacity of art 

education, especially in the early childhood and the 

adolescent components. On the other hand, if there 

were separate licensures for early childhood and 

high school art education, these licensures could 

provide new career opportunities for preservice art 

teachers. 

The addition of an Early Childhood 

License in Visual Art would enable creative 

curricular visual arts experiences for children; 

which would expose them to a growth-promoting 

aesthetic environment by helping them develop 

executive function and self-regulation skills. These 

skills help young children to plan, focus attention, 

remember instructions, and juggle multiple tasks 

successfully (Center on the Developing Child 

2017). In her study, Thompson (2006) noted that 

the typical early childhood classroom harked back 

to Lowenfeld’s developmental stage methodology. 

Most of all, a rich knowledge of developmental 

stages is needed in teaching young children. 

However, she cautioned that stage theories were 

founded on a culture-free assumption and 

neglected to consider the cultural and social 

context of the art making situation (Thompson 

2006, 228, 229, 238). Children need exposure to 

various materials; clay, paint, markers, collage 

materials, blocks for building, etc. She added that 

there is a need to study children making and 

interpreting visual images in the company of other 

children and adults in contexts where significant 

learning about art occurs. Communication with 

other children is necessary, especially as they 

discuss their seeing and making.   

By the same token, the problem could be 

solved in another stretched area of art education 

involvement, by upgrading the already available 

Ohio Adolescence to Young Adult License, valid 

for teaching grades 7-12 (Ohio Department of 

Education 1996). The curriculum would also allow 

the preservice art teacher to prepare serious art 

students for portfolio interviews, and increase the 

percentage of students taking Advanced Placement 

courses. Consequently, a 7-12 visual arts teacher 

could build a career ladder leading to a Master of 

Arts or a Master of Fine Arts. With these degrees, 

art teachers could teach college credit courses, 

grades 9-12. Furthermore, Ohio high school 

students enrolled in college-level courses receive 

both high school and college credit. This policy of 

dual enrollment keeps students academically 

challenged throughout their high school career, 

and closes the gaps between high school and the 

university (State Board of Education Task Force 

on Quality High Schools 2004).  

 

Forward to the Future 

Because of the need for depth of 

knowledge in the various stages of student 

development, future visual arts teachers may 

prepare for separate visual arts credentialing: early 

childhood, middle childhood, or adolescent. 

However, such a reform would change the cultures 

of classrooms, schools, and university art 



112 
 

 

education programs. According to Fullan (2016), 

the organizational culture would change. Cohen 

and Spillane (1994), also point out that in the 

United States, because of its size and diversity, 

local and state governments have tremendous 

force. If licensure/certification policy would 

change, it would come from change in the culture 

within the universities, the cooperation of local 

schools, and the governance of the states. 

However, a successful transition from one 

licensure to another would attract the next 

generation of art educators because it would imply 

a more rigorous definition of art education 

curriculum. It is only through a robust curriculum 

that the professional community of art educators 

will achieve a favorable outcome. 

 

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