The National Roundtable on Teacher Education in the Arts (NRTEA) is a national laboratory of ideas, a national forum for discussion and communication, and an incubator of visions, strategies and principles, concerning all aspects of preservice teacher education and in-service professional development. Given the unique and specific role the National Roundtable, the engagement in advocacy or developing related action plans, is not part of its mandate. The central participants in NRTEA generally come from faculties of education, teacher organizations and institutions, artist organizations, and government officials from the Federal and provincial governments. They come together, in a very nonpartisan manner, to share, discuss and explore focused issues that are important to them and topics they helped to define over a period of three months prior to the roundtable meeting. The fulcrum for discussion is always the nature of the teaching-learning encounter in teacher education. Given that it is a major fountain for the development of arts education in schools across Canada, our first principle is to support the finest possible teacher education in the arts, for those involved in school classrooms and community settings. By arts, we refer to dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts, in traditional settings and in new and experimental combinations. NRTEA was founded in 2011 with the first National Roundtable held on May 25 and 26, at the National Arts Centre, in Ottawa. All of the annual Roundtable meetings have been followed by summary/analytical reports that have been given wide national distribution.