The Need

More than ever before, Canada needs engaged young people who have the skills, tools, aptitudes and attitudes necessary to become expert, life-long learners imbued with a passion to contribute to 21^st century society.

We need to prepare children and youth for a future where they must think critically, act collaboratively, embrace inclusivity, and encourage their inquisitiveness to deliver creative solutions to both entrenched and emerging challenges, expressed with clarity and conviction.

The skills and abilities required for success in the 21^st century may not be new, but their place among educational priorities is. There is no time to waste in providing children and youth with the opportunity to develop this toolkit for 21^st century success.

Their future starts now.

The ArtsSmarts approach to teaching and learning prepares students for the 21^st century through an arts-infused, inquiry-based project model. This model is shown to not only improve student attendance, engagement and academic achievement, but also to help counteract drop out rates, reduce behavioural issues in the classroom, accommodate student with special needs, and ultimately to prepare young Canadians as citizens that will positively contribute to our country's prosperity.

The Challenge

Across Canada there is increased concern for improving the important relationship between the quality of learning environments and student success. Existing core patterns and organizational practices don't seem to be serving our young Canadians as well as they used to; and student attendance, engagement and achievement are suffering as a result. The statistics are significant:

• Student dropout rates across the country vary from as low as 10% to as high as 32%.
• More disturbingly, by the time they reach high school, up to 60% of all students - urban, suburban and rural - are chronically disengaged from school. Such disengagement is disproportionately experienced by students who are living in poverty, coping with disabilities, or who are from ethnic minority and Aboriginal communities.

The effects on the broader community are equally alarming. Disengaged students are linked to school violence, social exclusion, and a polarization severe enough to pose a threat to social cohesion in Canada (Willms, Friesen and Milton, 2009).

How Does ArtsSmarts Help?

ArtsSmarts is uniquely positioned to address the challenges of student disengagement and the requirements of the 21st century learning agenda. Evaluative research into our approach of arts-infused, inquiry based teaching and learning has shown that ArtsSmarts can result in increased student attendance, engagement and success in a wide variety of school settings. Recent findings indicate that the greatest positive effects are made with students Grade 6-12, and with those students who are in vulnerable life situations or who have special needs.

At the heart of the ArtsSmarts approach is the creative process made explicit through project-based inquiry. Our approach has evolved through constant testing in thousands of ArtsSmarts projects over the past 12 years to focus uniquely on the arts as a process for learning. This approach has developed thanks research and feedback from the experiences of students, educators, and artists across Canada. And these numbers are significant. Since 1998, ArtsSmarts has impacted the lives of over:

• 475,000 students
• 21,000 educators
• 8,500 artists
• 2,800 schools
• 300 communities across Canada
• 16 key partnership active in all 10 provinces who work with a total of 110 community partners and organizations

Whether it's a child in Northern Alberta who finds family healing when a brother decides to return to school after having dropped out, or a youth in Montreal who learns that her graffiti tagging can be embraced as a learning tool, ArtsSmarts helps children and youth bring their education and their community together in meaningful and life-changing ways.

Creativity is clearly a core competency for ArtsSmarts, which we define as the act of producing new ideas, approaches or actions. The ArtsSmarts approach focuses creative thinking by having students tackle a "Big Question," which will spring from their own curiosity, from a teacher's challenge, or from the pressing needs of the world around them. Students are guided in their work by an artist-teacher team to seek answers to their "Big Question" by drawing on existing and new learning in multiple subject areas, but always focused through an artistic lens. Ultimately, students take ownership of their projects and take the risks necessary to solve problems and generate answers. ArtsSmarts projects provide the safe space for this type of deep inquiry by being grounded in the creative process, a series of four inter-related stages that emphasize:

• Purposeful analysis;
• Imaginative idea generation;
• Creative expression; and
• Critical reflection.

It is through this creative process at play in every ArtsSmarts project that students begin to mirror and acquire the skills and aptitudes that will contribute to their ongoing success, while also producing and experiencing original artistic and cultural contributions to society. The cultural content generated with each ArtsSmarts project is not only an expression of ideas, but of solutions to key issues of relevance to 21st century children and youth.

It is through this work that ArtsSmarts has become a leading organization, playing a vital role in transforming Canada's education models. But it's your investment in ArtsSmarts that supports our children as they take on the 21^st Century.

Mission

ArtsSmarts supports, promotes, and demonstrates the impact of the arts as a way of engaging students in 21st century life and learning.

Vision

ArtsSmarts will transform the state of Canadian public education so that all young people are equipped with the creative capacities and competencies they need to experience ongoing success in learning and life in the 21^st century.

Values

ArtsSmarts champions and acts on those values that form the core competencies of successful 21st Century learners. These are:

Creativity: ArtsSmarts thinks broadly and reflect deeply on its work, connecting ideas about the arts as a process for learning in new and inventive ways.

Collaboration: ArtsSmarts stimulates and integrates multiple perspectives, cultivates contributions from within and outside its networks, embraces partnerships across numerous stakeholder groups, and acts as a catalyst to drive positive, system-wide change.

Inclusiveness: ArtsSmarts thrives on harnessing the strength found in the diversity of our networks. By advancing a communal sense of responsibility and ownership over the ArtsSmarts model at local, provincial and national levels, we create the conditions for collective success.

Inquisitiveness: ArtsSmarts seeks to advance its learning and create new meaning by constantly examining, researching and reflecting critically on the implementation and impact of our work. In so doing we strive to create conditions that allow us to re-imagine and resolve emerging challenges and opportunities in effective and inventive ways.

Expressiveness: At every turn ArtsSmarts makes its learning visible and available to whoever is interested in our work, and welcomes response and comment to these expressions.

Engagement: ArtsSmarts commits to be actively engaged in the transformation of public school education, drawing on the resources and abilities with our organization and our networks.

Beliefs

Our approach to teaching and learning is based on the belief that:

• The arts are central to 21^st century education, whose objective is to advance six key competencies for successful human development: creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, expressiveness, inclusivity and active engagement.
• Creativity - the act of producing new ideas, approaches or actions - is an innate way of thinking and behaving that can be nurtured.
• Young people are innately creative knowledge builders; they are explorers and willing co-constructors of their own learning, when properly engaged.
• Young people need to be active, involved and encouraged to take ownership of their learning if they are to be truly engaged.
• Building alliances between the education and cultural sectors, community organizations and individual creators is the key to creating sustainable educational programs and successful creative inquiry-based projects.
• Experience-based evaluation leads to innovations in education that not only enhance the relationship between student and teacher, but advance improvements in student learning.

Strategies

Building on all of the above, ArtsSmarts will activate investment in attractive, revenue-generating business lines through a five-prong business strategy. This mission-focused strategy builds vital products and services that create an environment of participation and ownership among a growing ArtsSmarts community. The strategies are:

• Create an online platform, called ArtsSmarts Open, for broad dissemination of the ArtsSmarts model, while continuing to develop high value partnerships;
• Establish a highly-visible, juried prize program that encourages wide participation across Canada, and provides excellent opportunity for community and corporate invest in our social enterprise;
• Invest in the development of research creation and dissemination that will further articulate the impact of ArtsSmarts, and which continues to position ArtsSmarts as a thought leader and knowledge hub;
• Develop an annual showcase event celebrating innovation in education, pulling together the brightest and best in arts, education, research, practice and innovation; and
• Build awareness and appreciation among Canadians about ArtsSmarts the ArtsSmarts learning model, where the arts are a process for learning.