Arts Education Included in UNESCO’s Futures of Education Report

By: Bridget Woodbury

If you’ve been around for a while, you may recall the UNESCO’s International Commission on the Futures of Education’s paper outlining nine ideas for public action in education in a post-COVID world with great interest. We sought out thoughts and opinions from our community and there was consensus, among our respondents, that an arts and cultural education is an invaluable tool for the academic and social development of young people:

“Several folks pointed out that the arts provoke and encourage curiosity. Curiosity, in turn, fuels active learning, fosters empathy, and encourages students to perceive the world as it could be, rather than as it is. The arts are a valuable tool for cultivating a life-long enthusiasm for learning. They motivate students to attend school and engage with the material. 

Respondents to our call for comments uniformly indicated that educators are employing the arts and culture to address topics like racism and police brutality from multiple perspectives that may differ from the student’s own. Arts and culture offer a point of entry for understanding others’ lived experiences and valuing diversity.

Finally, arts and cultural education can help adolescents and young adults form a sense of identity and establish a figurative home. Students learn to express themselves in productive, nonviolent ways.”

This week, UNESCO released the final report on the Futures of Education initiative. We’re thrilled to share that in the 186 page report the arts hold a prominent place. Here is an excerpt from page 73:

Building imagination, judgment and possibility through arts education

Education in the arts – music, drama, dance, design, visual arts, literature, poetry and more – can greatly expand students’ capacities to master complex skills and can support social and emotional learning across the curriculum. It can enhance our human abilities to access the experience of others, whether through empathy or the reading of non-verbal clues.

The arts also make visible certain truths that are sometimes obscured and provide concrete ways to celebrate multiple perspectives and interpretations of the world. Many forms of artistic expression traffic in subtleties and grapple with life’s ambiguities; students can learn that small difference can have large effects. Artistic experience often requires a willingness to surrender to the unknown; students can learn that everything changes with circumstance and opportunity. The arts also help us learn to say, show, and feel what needs to be said, shown, and felt, helping to advance the horizons of knowing, being, and communicating in and beyond the arts.

Curricula that invite creative expression through the arts have tremendous future-shaping potential. Artmaking provides new languages and means through which to make sense of the world, engage in cultural critique, and take political action. Curricula can also cultivate critical appreciation and engagement with cultural heritage and the powerful symbols, repertoires, and references of our collective identities.

You can read the full report here.