Help! Genius son wants to be a high school art teacher!

Parents Forum
21

“To make matters worse, he may end up choosing an expensive college (I’ve always told him that I would support his choice since I assumed he would choose a path that would lead him into a prosperous future.)”

Now is the time to get completely honest with yourself about just exactly how much money you are ready, willing, and able to pay for your son’s education, and under what conditions. And yes, it is OK for you to set conditions. It is your money. But you need to let your son know what those conditions are so that he can consider all of his options.

Run the Net Price Calculators at the websites of at least one Big State U in your home state, one Big State U that you’ve heard of in some other state, one Place I Dreamed My Kid Would Attend, one Good Art School, one Place I Figured My Kid Could Get Into. Then think long and hard about where the money could come from for any of those. If you can readily pull together $70k each year it is one thing. If you will have to scrape to get to $20k it is another.

With an ACT in that range and an equivalent GPA there are likely to be affordable (or even nearly free) options if he’s not picky about where he studies. Some of those places will have good Art Education programs: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest

22

He sounds like he may make a difference in some young student’s life. What’s not to love about that?

23

I know someone whose kid is in college studying a major with low paid career prospects – but that is not a problem for that kid because the kid has frugal spending habits and is unlikely to “need” a high pay level to live comfortably.

Those with spendier habits will find more (self-inflicted) restrictions on their financially realistic career paths.

24

Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt . . .

One consequence of sending a kid to an “expensive” college is that it will be full of kids who can afford it, and who have outsized ambitions. That kind of atmosphere can be catching. One friend of my son’s went to Harvard, did a secondary concentration in painting, but wound up taking a job at one of the MBB consulting firms when he graduated. My spouse had two college housemates who were fine arts majors at Yale. One is, indeed, a high school art teacher. She has a great, if somewhat hippieish life, which she wouldn’t trade for anything. Two of her paintings are hanging in our living room, and I love them. The other is an MD. One of my college roommates was a History of Art major, who ultimately became a very wealthy commercial real estate developer with a kickass art collection. (To be honest, he never talked about becoming a high school art teacher, though.)

I also periodically tell the story of my high school French teacher, a former music major at that school in Cambridge. After some twists and turns, he wound up as part owner (then selling shareholder) and CEO of a major artist-management company, a revered figure in social and cultural circles, and something of a philanthropist.

The point is that if you are smart, and confident, and networked, and have some luck, you can start one place and end up another without going in a straight line or selling your soul. Or not end up another place, but still have a life worth envying. Expensive elite colleges are a great place to build a foundation for that.

The other way to go is the art school route. Good art schools do a fine job of training young artists how to support themselves as artists in the world, including by teaching, by entrepreneurship, or by plugging themselves in to the gigantic business of commercial art.

It sounds like the kid has a perfectly good idea what his father thinks, which means that its somewhere between useless and counter-productive for the father to try and have the “practical talk” with him. But he might actually appreciate it if his father let him know that the art-school path was OK if it made sense to him.

Or – as has already been hinted – you can combine the two with something like the Brown-RISD program.

25

My d is a studio art major at NYU. She, too, left HS wanting to be a HS art school. She is on track for that. But by going to NYU she has gotten a stellar education. All her art classes have an intellectual bend. Lots of reading, writing and discussions about art from a conceptual basis. She is in their BFA program so she can take a full schedule of art and art history. Her plan is to continue at NYU to get her masters in art education.

She has really begun to see herself becoming a working artist as well as a teacher in the future. The faculty at NYU is made up of working/ exhibiting contemporary artists. The opportunities for her to be exposed to all phases of the art world have been great. Also lots of connections to exhibit throughout the city.

Down the road D would love to be a professor at NYU. I could see it happening. The beauty is that with luck she could teach HS and college and be

If your son is passionate about art and education, he can have a successful, happy life. I would honor your commitment to send him to a good school.

26

A 34 on the ACT does not imply “genius.” It simply means that this kid is a good student and good test-taker. That’s great! But it’s nothing extraordinary.

I would suggest enthusiastically supporting the art teacher ambition. Why not? It’s a fine career.

But at the same time, as others have pointed out here, it may be hard to get that kind of job. So the student may want to think about what he might like to do during times when he can’t get that kind of position. Is it the art part that’s more important to him or the teaching part? If it’s the art part, he may want to take some graphic design courses or some business courses so that he might be able to work in art-related businesses, such as galleries. If it’s the teaching part, he might want to try to get certified in additional subjects.

27

Or CS courses… art majors with some CS knowledge sometimes find their way into such jobs as user interface design in computing contexts.

Yes.

28

@Hunt I kind of agree with you. That is why I didn’t’ hesitate when he asked to go to this very prestigious and pricey music summer camp, for the second time, this summer. He is having a blast there at this very moment, and I will attend his performance this coming Saturday.

29

Many kids, inspired by a teacher, say they want to be a teacher. Often, that’s because they don’t know what other avenues are available to graduates with their interests. OP’s son may discover a world of options once he’s at a university – an expensive one, or not. I wouldn’t get bent out of shape about it, OP. Most kids change their major and/or life direction during and after college.

30

Giving the benefit of the doubt to someone who chooses “Philabuster” as a user name, I just want to agree with those who say that teaching art is a perfectly good career choice. A friend of mine (now retired) was the art teacher at a high poverty school that didn’t seem to have much going for it. But every year, kids from her classes won a city-wide art contest, beating out students from much “better” schools, with lots of extra money from wealthy parent PTA’s, and even private schools. “Miss D” taught real art and exposed kids who might have never left their neighborhood to artistic techniques you see in museums and galleries. Art can also be a place where students who might struggle in academics can find a way to stand out. Miss D absolutely changed kids’ lives.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea for the OP’s son to dual-major, in case he finds himself struggling to find work. It can only help when you bring other skills to the table. But I absolutely wouldn’t force him to drop art. My ex’s father forced him to drop music as an intended major and go for something practical and more in line with his math and science skills. He chose computer science and has done well, but he resented his father for the rest of his father’s life, and they were never close again. He has also resumed his music career, but on the side, and he resents that he lost years of work in the music industry.

As for his choice of schools, make sure you can afford the school the son chooses. Make it clear what you can and cannot pay for, and work with his mother on this. The kid needs to go into applications with his eyes wide open.

31

^^He probably would be a dual major - Education and Studio Arts or Education and Art History I would imagine. He he is serious about teaching it’s good to consider state license. I can’t really respond to the original post because I just don’t understand why some people attach monetary support to the college and the college degree. If he’s a teacher, once he finds a job like every single other college graduate, he should be able to stand on his own two feet financially…and isn’t that the goal – for kids to be happy, grounded and independent?

32

Frankly, I think this kid is just fascinated by this certain teacher for now. One of mine loved their psychology teacher/class and thought of pursuing that for awhile. But it faded when the class was over. It was just a cooler class than the others so had a bigger influence at the time. Maybe same with art.

So far this thread has answered the question of whether to change his current path (or major o’ the day at this point in time) and as expected, parents are encouraging him to be allowed to pursue his passion which could lead to things “bigger” financially speaking, than being a teacher.

There is a second part of this question – is it ok for a parent to change their mind to spend, say, a quarter million dollars if the major is one that will not likely produce a high income? And while we want to say it shouldn’t matter, that supporting your kid to a happy life is the goal, I know plenty of people that say they will not pay private/elite/OOS school rates for the child to be a teacher, major in philosophy, art, or other lower perceived paying careers. OTHT, I also know people that spend big money simply so their kids are with other people that spend big money. To each their own I suppose.

33

What I don’t get is why anybody who was going to insist that their kid major in something that pays well wouldn’t TELL the kid that at the same time he was promising to pay for a good college.

So, no, it’s not OK to change your mind if you made a promise. It might be necessary, maybe, if you lost your job or something.

34

My DD wanted to be an Art teacher because she loved her Art teacher…but that was in 1st grade. By 5th grade she wanted to be a Math Teacher and that stuck. My IB Diploma HL Math Majored in Math girl at Binghamton did go to Columbia U for a Masters in Secondary Math Education and is applying to teaching jobs in NYC.
I always was glad she had a goal, but made sure she majored in math so she would have other opportunities if she didn’t like teaching. She also did tutoring and a little student teaching in HS so she had an idea that she liked teaching.

35

Yes, blueskies, I have seen parents on this forum talk about refusing to send their kids to a "good " or “top” school to major in something that will not bring in the proper ROI, or return on investment. I guess to them, even though I assume their kids aren’t going to be paying them back, ROI means the kid must go on to become wealthy enough to make an expensive education “worth it”. I don’t understand this, because it’s the KID who will be earning the income, not the parent, and I assume the goal is not to make sure the child can later support the parents.

Not everyone worships money. For some people, earning a decent living, being self-supporting and doing what they enjoy is enough. I’m not sure when we crossed into the mindset that income and career are everything. I always think of that saying, “No one ever wanted to have their bank account hold their hand as they lay dying.”

I have a relative who teachers. She went to a private school, a good one, but got great merit awards and was debt-free within 2 years. She has since received two Master’s degrees, teaches PT at a community college in addition to teaching 2 HS subjects, leads trips to Canada and France, coaches three groups (2 sports and and one EC), and couldn’t be happier. She has had parents write her town’s paper commending her on her work, and students still return to her after moving on to thank her for being their teacher. Maybe she won’t ever be rich-in $$-but she’s rich in many other ways.

What better life goal than to be happy?

36

But Sseamom if the relative did not get merit and did not become debt free quickly or if her parents went into debt for the good private school would it have been worth it? Becoming a teacher is a great profession for those that love it. But not sure it (or almost any profession) is worth going into big debt for when a less expensive alternative is available to reach that goal.

This parent needs to be open with this kid about what they are actually able and willing to pay for. It may be late, but not too late, to have a real conversation. The parent may think it is worth a big stretch to send a prospective engineer to MIT or future banker to Harvard. If the kid has to take loans for those schools, it may not make sense to do so to become a teacher.

OTOH, if the money is readily available without loans and the kid gets into an elite, then the parents should not be concerned about the major.

37

Another possible career path for someone interested in art, and with a good science background, is art conservation.

http://www.conservation-us.org/publications-resources/careers-in-conservation/become-a-conservator#.Vaa8sPlViko

38

It’s not too late to set financial limits for his college choices. But you need to do that now rather than once he has applied. Just don’t set different limits based on what his major is.

39

I have a friend who is a scientific illustrator. She does other art and drawing as well, but primarily makes her living illustrating scientific textbooks. It’s a great way to combine art and science.

40

Art teachers do not have good job prospects. If he wants to study what he loves, it is fine as long as he supports his desire. If he is on the parents’ support, sorry, any prior assumptions have to be open on the table for discussion. Parents have full rights to choose to support or not despite of any prior promises. The condition on which those promises were made is apparently changed.

On the other hand, I do not know how to deal with “geniuses”, none of mine were geniuses, those who worked hard, achieved, no more and no less than that. We did not promise anything for college, they choose smartly. But we promised for the Grad. school and held our promises because the promise was made on conditions that did not changed. But all the way we were telling that anything could happen and that is why we made a Grad. student to apply to loans just to decline them later. Cover your back no matter what!
I would just simply state the fact that you made a mistake with the promise because you made an incorrect assumption. The assumption did not hold, so promise cannot hold either. I do not see what is wrong with this.