Call to Action on Arts Education

COVID-19 has devastated the arts and learning sector, threatening to push the arts completely out of post-pandemic school programming while limiting the impact of the sector on broader community revival. We are seeking endorsements for our Call to Action on Arts Education to help in our advocacy efforts as we seek to sustain and grow arts and learning in an emerging new normal. By adding your name, you will make a bold statement that arts and creativity are integral to the learning process, both at school and throughout life, and are fundamental to the development of the fully realized individual.

Call to Action on Arts Education - The Winnipeg Vision

The Canadian Network for Arts & Learning calls on governments, artists, educators, professional organizations, researchers, universities, communities, and all advocates of arts and learning to endorse the following principles to ensure that the arts are positioned to make an increased and sustainable contribution to learning both at school and throughout our communities.

The vision is the outcome of a major conference (Creative Convergence) held in Winnipeg, Manitoba in October of 2019 during which participating experts from across Canada and around the globe were asked to share their perspectives on the future of the sector. Their responses highlighted how the three goals of the Seoul Agenda, Goals for the development of arts education (UNESCO 2010) can be interpreted from the perspective of practitioners and learners.

We envision a sustainable future for arts and learning in which learners of all ages:

  1. Have Access

    • Access diverse and inclusive learning experiences in, through and about the arts via
      • Opportunities within the home, community, learning institutions, and workplace
      • Recognition and celebration of diverse artistic traditions and expressions
      • Digitally mediated and face-to-face engagement
      • Overcoming social, economic, geographic, and cultural barriers

  2. Experience Quality

    • Experience quality arts education via
      • Progressive development of artistic knowledge and techniques
      • Self-expression and human interaction
      • Responding to works of arts from diverse cultures and traditions
      • Balancing the potential and risks of technologically-mediated arts practice and learning
      • Moments of contemplation, curiosity, wonder, joy and delight

  3. Apply the Arts

    • Apply the arts to issues of personal, local, and global significance via
      • connecting to self, others and community
      • Building understanding, reconciling difference and mobilizing change
      • Supporting civic engagement and social good
      • Contributing to personal and community health and well being
      • Activating artistic ways of knowing within non-arts sectors

Our call to action is issued in sympathy with the provisions of the Frankfurt Declaration for Arts Education (World Alliance for Arts Education, November 2019) and is closely aligned with several of the goals and targets of UNESCO's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UNESCO 2015).

View the Call to Action as a PDF

Add your endorsement to the Call to Action on Arts Education

Recent Endorsements

Katy Abraham

I am endorsing because I am an arts educator, and I see and feel the inherent value of artistic expression everyday in my life, and more importantly, in the lives of my students.

Donna Blanco

I am endorsing because Thou Art

Connie Clarke

COBA Performance Institute

I am endorsing because I am endorsing because art is an essential part of human/societal development and sustainability. It would be a grave mistake to push arts to the side in a time where we have been relegated to isolation. The sustenance of our collective psyche has been solely predicated upon the Arts. Art has been, and forever will be a source of therapeutic healing for us all. Every TV show/movie, song, game, book, app, etc. Is steeped in one or many braches of the Arts. An appreciation for the arts is vital for human development as it propels ingenuity in any field, as well as an attention to detail and aesthetic. It fosters building of communities, creating common ground for expression as well as cultural awareness/appreciation as we are part of a diverse family. Art also acts as a vehicle to support the development of children who require alternative/expanded methods of educational engagement. Without arts education programs, access to these experiences are only streamlined to those with financial affluence to afford classes for their children. Arts education and arts venues should be available to all, regardless their economic status, race, creed, sexual orientation/identification, culture.  Art helps to preserve record of every generations accomplishments. Hidden in the paintings/photos, architecture, music/movements of the past are the stories of time itself. How fun would it be to learn history if we never knew who or what anyone/anything looked like? How fun/beautiful would any wedding, birthday civic holiday be with out art? Halloween without decorations or costumes seems fairly lack luster. Art also has and will always be the driving force behind our economy. No product is sold without first garnering the interest of the consumer through either visual, aural, or sensual stimulation. To summarize life would simply be boring without art. It is the only reflection of the soul of humanity in everything we do. By reducing/removing the importance we threaten the very progress of our future.

Jean Travis

I am endorsing because In addition to teaching valuable skills - teamwork, creativity, perseverance, etc. - art is the soul of humanity.

Denise Roy

I am endorsing because Arts education is vital to preserve our humanity