Lehramt Kunst (Fine Art Education) State Exam

The teacher certification programme in Fine Art Education is structured in modules. In the project and specialist modules that run alongside the course, lecturers encourage students’ personal artistic and creative expression. They teach technical, organisational and critical-analytical methods. They also encourage theory-based reflection on art education practice, as well as on artistic working processes and outcomes.

The programme fosters an inquiring mindset through critical engagement with subject-specific role expectations. The interdisciplinary examination of artistic, academic and art-education-related questions and problems shapes the development of a professional identity as an art educator.

Halfway through the programme, students acquire practical teaching skills during a practical teaching placement. Accompanying seminars at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena and the Faculty of Art and Design support this development. In the ninth and tenth semesters, state examination modules assess whether students meet the academic, artistic, subject-specific didactic and educational science requirements for admission to the preparatory service at grammar schools.

Studying the Art Teacher Training programme at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar means adhering to the objectives set out by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs regarding education for sustainable development, and developing artistic and design strategies and forms of expression through discourse against the backdrop of our responsibility for a sustainable society.¹

As part of developing a professional understanding of art education, the focus is on fostering the ability to reflect on the challenges we currently face. ‘Art education [and art pedagogy] … do not merely facilitate understanding between art and the public’. What is meant is ‘… also to harness the specific strengths of the arts for everyday coexistence, their ability to set communicative processes in motion, to shift perceptions of the familiar, and to show that everything could also be quite different.’² Recognition of one’s own scope for action towards social, economic and political transformation fosters the ability to make responsible decisions and to participate in processes of negotiation and shaping, despite contradictions, uncertainties and conflicting goals.

This includes: self-acceptance; accessing one’s own emotions; giving expression to these emotions; and, through reflection, gaining a better understanding of oneself and the behaviour of one’s fellow human beings; seeking, trying out and finding forms of expression through which self-expression is possible; seeking out, discovering and observing, listening and empathising with them, in order to enter into a genuine exchange (resonance) and, through this, a constructive process of understanding, so as to be able to recognise, accept and value oneself in the other’s needs and the other in one’s own needs.

Taking on the responsibility of educating pupils to be open-minded and to consider multiple perspectives requires one’s own reflective ability to deal with the unknown in a tolerant manner. Enabling students in the subject of Art to analyse and stage developments with foresight requires the cultivation of their own capacity for judgement. Socially relevant issues are therefore always an integral part of the interdisciplinary project modules, specialist modules and Scientific Modules offered by the Faculty of Art and Design, in which concepts for sustainable development are developed and creative and artistic solutions are devised. 

Dealing with risks, addressing prejudices and fostering the ability to act jointly are central to the modules in art education, as is the examination of inclusive, non-discriminatory practices in lesson planning, alongside heterogeneous learning objectives and teaching methods. An attitude developed in this spirit involves the development of skills that support young people in planning, deciding and acting with increasing personal responsibility, whilst engaging in a process of reflection.³

Studying for a degree in Art Education in Weimar also means participating in an avant-garde and progressive understanding of teaching and learning that develops, implements and shares innovative and sustainable approaches to art education. In this context, traditional concepts of art, design and spatial design, ideas and practices – such as discourses from related disciplines – are not only systematically scrutinised but also deconstructed through a conscious process of reflection, with the aim of fostering new, transformative approaches to artistic thinking and practice through contemporary art formats and dimensions. 

Active participation in the various university committees is of central importance to us, to the positioning and visibility of the Art Teacher Training degree programme, to the individual professional development process in art education, and to the sustainable development of the university; it is currently being undertaken with particular commitment by the members of the degree programme. This form of active participation reflects a collective commitment and a great sense of responsibility for the academic, institutional and professional future of the degree programme, as well as for the personal development of the students themselves.

Furthermore, a key responsibility lies in the ability to participate as informed stakeholders in all processes shaping and developing schools; in the willingness and ability to cooperate with non-school educational partners; in networking with other schools and stakeholders; in the incorporation of out-of-school learning environments drawn from the pupils’ everyday lives, and in the ability to create interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary spaces for experimentation and experience.⁴ This may also help to ensure that we consistently meet the requirement to engage continuously with current issues in teaching and learning, even beyond the first and second phases of teacher training, as this forms part of a professional self-image that must be developed during the studies.

The team at the Art Teacher Training Programme has agreed on joint guiding principles that form part of our teaching and learning concepts: transparency regarding decisions on the choice of methods, learning objectives and assessments; recognition of diversity; and the acceptance of both consensus and dissent as integral parts of negotiation processes; the establishment of respectful communication, the fostering of a culture that is sensitive to mistakes and the cultivation of a proactive attitude towards failure, the creation of low-hierarchy spaces for interaction, and the facilitation of participation and collaboration. Democracy education, language education, education for sustainable development, and inclusive, discrimination-sensitive education are overarching themes that shape joint teaching and learning at universities and in schools. Recognising one’s own responsibility, and jointly developing and reflecting on different practices, is therefore at the heart of every artistic, art-historical and art-educational encounter in project-based, research-oriented and transformative Reallabors.

Last but not least, the active practice of craft and material techniques is also an important part of the training, through which implicit knowledge is acquired that goes beyond language. Consequently, on the one hand, this broadens the scope of students’ expression, whilst on the other, it keeps material techniques alive, thereby preserving media diversity – with the opportunity to further develop and sustain them. To this end, numerous workshops and the staff supporting them are available, facilitating both space and dialogue.

‘It is therefore important to note that it is only the abilities required, fostered and acquired during one’s education – independence, judgement, tolerance, a gift for improvisation, courage, drive and a willingness to take responsibility – that enable people to shape their own lives. Experts in art education maintain that what is learnt in art lessons is of significance to pupils’ lives.”⁵ (Marr 2014: 59) 

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¹ https://www.kmk.org/fileadmin/Dateien/veroeffentlichungen_beschluesse/2024/2024_06_13-BNE-Empfehlung.pdf (p. 6) 
² Birgit Mandel in Reinwand, 113f
³ Cf. http://www.transfer-21.de/indexb4c1.html?p=222 
⁴ See Anzengruber 2012, pp. 75ff
5 Marr 2014: 59

Students can combine »Fine Art Education (Secondary School) - Double Specialisation« with all other Gymnasium-level teacher certification courses offered at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. The cooperation with the University of Jena, however, makes commuting back and forth between Weimar and Jena necessary.

Fine Art Education can also be studied as a »Single Specialisation«, in which case students are only required to take Educational Science courses in Jena instead of a second teaching subject.

To gain admission to this teacher certification programme, students must pass an aptitude test, demonstrating particular artistic and/or design-related competence. Candidates who wish to commence their studies in the winter semester, are required to register for the aptitude test at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar by 31 March.

Candidates should be open to embracing experimental forms of art-design instruction and be willing to reflectively examine their own working process. Students are expected to demonstrate competence in school educational practice and knowledge of current developments in the art field. Creativity, independence, verbal competence and flexibility are essential for successfully completing the programme. To meet these academic requirements, candidates are expected to develop their own artistic identity and art-pedagogical working method. Studying at two different locations requires a high degree of organisational skill, both in terms of drawing up timetables and the willingness to combine acquired expertise and skills in an interdisciplinary fashion.

The teacher certification programmes in Fine Art Education (Secondary School) Double and Single Specialisation are only offered in German.

You can find out what costs are involved during studies and what funding options are available on the university’s website.

Find out about further opportunities for specific funding for teacher training programmes from organisations that support gifted students.