Advice for pursuing primary teaching

Currently I’m on a undergrad for psychology but I’m struggling and have had to re sit a couple years and I think I’m not enjoying. I want to change my career path to a primary school teacher. I understand the pathways but I am a little confused on the skills needed. I struggle with art immensely as I have aphantasia (no mental imagery) and a primary school teacher needs to know a little on every subject. So it would be impossible to teach art since I can’t even draw a star or a house or a face.

My questions are:

Is knowing basic art skills a must or do schools now have other teaches who teach the kids art and music?

Should I do the primary teaching 3 year course and a PGCE? Or just finish my psychology undergrad then do a PGCE

I am thinking this because just in case if I’m not able to teach children due to my hinderance in my art skills then I’ll have the counsellor path still.

Reply 1

Rachel_ysj

Original post by A144

Currently I’m on a undergrad for psychology but I’m struggling and have had to re sit a couple years and I think I’m not enjoying. I want to change my career path to a primary school teacher. I understand the pathways but I am a little confused on the skills needed. I struggle with art immensely as I have aphantasia (no mental imagery) and a primary school teacher needs to know a little on every subject. So it would be impossible to teach art since I can’t even draw a star or a house or a face.
My questions are:
Is knowing basic art skills a must or do schools now have other teaches who teach the kids art and music?
Should I do the primary teaching 3 year course and a PGCE? Or just finish my psychology undergrad then do a PGCE
I am thinking this because just in case if I’m not able to teach children due to my hinderance in my art skills then I’ll have the counsellor path still.

Hi there,

I'm sorry to hear that you're not really enjoying your current psychology course, but it's also great that you have an idea of what you'd like to do instead and are considering primary teaching!

I'm a 3rd year primary education student and in my experience, most schools do not have specialists who come in to teach art. In art, you're expected to teach the relevant skills rather than 'draw a house'. This could include mixing colours to understand the primary and secondary colours, or using different mediums and techniques which are then applied to a piece. However, a lot of the things we do have been based around children looking at good pieces of work and recreating them with their own twists. If my understanding is correct, aphantasia does not affect you when you have something to replicate from physically, which would not be an issue when teaching art because I don't think you would have to draw anything from mental image alone.

With regard to your other questions, it is completely up to you if you choose the 3 year undergrad or the 1 year postgrad course. It depends what your plans for the future are. If you are close to finishing your psychology undergrad, you may wish to finish that to give yourself another avenue to go down incase you realise teaching isn't for you. On the other hand, I'm really glad I did the 3 year course because it gave me plenty of time to develop my skills and look into teaching in depth. With the 3 year course, you would have in depth teaching into all subjects, including art, where you could gain top tips from lecturers about how to get around the barriers of aphantasia.

Realistically, I think you could do anything you set your mind to. There are plenty of teachers out there who have dyslexia and dyscalculia and are still successful teachers. Art is just a small part of the course, but there will always be very willing children who would happily demonstrate for you too :smile:

I hope that my experiences have helped you just a little bit and that you are happy with whatever choice you make :smile:

Good luck with your future studies!!

Rachel - York St John Student Rep

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