Design for learning through the arts

In 1999 the Director-General of UNESCO issued an international appeal for the promotion of arts education and creativity at school. Since then UNESCO has been quite remarkable in its World-wide initiatives on behalf of art education. This article welcomes UNESCO's advocacy effort and invites InSEA and other arts education professional groups to take notice of this activity and enjoin this worldwide dialogue as full and critical partners. This paper suggests a beginning agenda for this dialogue in two parts: a brief commentary on issues that are central to this much needed debate, namely - arts-in-education, interdisciplinarity and school curricula, art and cognition, learning in the arts and transfer of learning to other subjects; and a model that identifies the critical curricular influences that need to be taken into account when arts are introduced into schools as a way of knowing and as a distinctive way of learning.