Mr. Jeff M. Poulin

What’s Going on Internationally in Arts Education?

Posted by Mr. Jeff M. Poulin, Jun 02, 2015 0 comments


Mr. Jeff M. Poulin

As we celebrated International Arts Education Week 2015 last week, I have a renewed interest in exploring what is happening around the world in the fields of arts and education; specifically where they come together.

The first International Arts education Week was held in 2012 at the UNESCO headquarters with representatives from all sectors involved including artists, educators, NGO’s and the like. To coordinate global efforts in celebration of the power and impact of arts education, the delegates at the UNESCO general conference approved a resolution designating a week to join together as a global community to celebrate on the 4th week of May annually. This guide book is a great starting place for your celebration.

In the United States, we often look internally for solutions to complex problems in our regions, states, or local communities. In celebration of International Arts in Education Week, I would suggest that we broaden our horizons and look externally for ideas, effective practices, unique models and solutions to some of our challenges.

In 2013, I worked on the first national Arts in Education Charter in the Republic of Ireland. I had the privilege of working on a national policy, which was greatly influenced by best practice throughout Europe and the world. We held a conference, which brought together thought leaders from the UK, Australia, the US and examples from a multitude of countries to fully explore the role of this policy in the implementation of arts in education in classrooms throughout the country of approximately four million citizens.

When conducting the initial research in preparation for this conference, I uncovered many essential tools and resources for those who are interested in international models for arts education (and have continued collecting them!):

I hope that you join the international celebrations for arts education in years to come! Be sure to keep an eye on ARTSblog for several other examples of what is happening internationally as well.

Happy (belated!) International Arts Education Week!

Please login to post comments.