Arts for transformative education: a guide for teachers from the UNESCO AssociatedSchools Network

Guiding Teachers to Transform Learning Through the Arts

The arts offer tremendous potential for enriching, enlivening, and propelling learning that transforms individuals and communities. Arts learning fuels transformative education that helps increase students’ capacity and motivation to build a more peaceful and sustainable world. However, to fully realize that potential, teachers must mindfully structure and support educational experiences to optimize what students will take away from them.

This guide invites teachers to harness the transformative power of the arts through the research-informed Arts for Transformative Education model. This thinking tool for teachers was developed by analyzing data from more than 600 teachers across 39 countries in the UNESCO Associated Schools Network (ASPnet). The model identifies four dimensions of arts learning experiences: Context, actions, relevance, and outcomes.

The model also recognizes special affordances associated with the arts that can enhance learning experiences. ‘Arts assets’ are situated within or across the learning dimensions. Arts assets hold the power to provoke transformation.

This publication provides:

• 12 ‘learning experience descriptions’ illustrating how the Arts for Transformative Education model works in real-world learning.

• 12 ‘learning experience snapshots’ providing shorter additional examples.

• ‘Guidelines for teachers’ outlining a step-by-step process for activating arts learning to empower transformative education.