Bill 118 2006

An Act to make the fourth week in October Arts Education Week

Preamble

The arts are a unique and primary form of communication and expression for human beings. The arts fuel our imagination and give our creativity a voice. The arts provide us with an opportunity to order our lives with context and meaning. The arts allow us to share our differences through our cultures and lead to understanding, tolerance, and thus, peaceful coexistence.

For many years and for various reasons, schools the world over have lost their entrenched arts education programs and the ability to consistently deliver the core arts curriculum.

As our world moves forward in a knowledge based economy where creativity and culture are understood as intrinsically valuable to economically and socially healthy communities, there is a need to ensure that our children receive the best possible education, and it must include the arts.

We know the importance of arts education intuitively, anecdotally and empirically.

There are dozens of respected research studies that illustrate unequivocally that arts education leads to higher test scores, improved literacy and numeracy, stronger engagement in learning and a commitment to staying in school, better problem solving skills, discipline, higher self-esteem, self-confidence and tolerance and desirable adult outcomes.

These are the ingredients of successful individuals and societies. They make communities strong, safe and productive, and happy.

During the fourth week in October in each year, the week set aside to celebrate, honour and manifest arts education, arts specialists and community arts organizations may work with schools and teachers leading up to the week to organize arts events, arts related learning experiences, or to integrate curricula through artistic and creative techniques. Projects, performances, or exhibits can be held during Arts Education Week or, alternatively, can be launched during Arts Education Week with the culmination coming during Education Week in the following May. Field trips can be arranged to local arts venues or to other schools for Arts Education Week exchanges. The possibilities and opportunities are endless, with a little imagination.

And, the arts nurture that intangible essential called imagination, giving us limitless intellectual and practical reach. Imagination tells us that things can be different - they can be better - and that gives us hope. Something each and every one of us needs in our survival kit of life.

Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Ontario, enacts as follows:

Arts Education Week

1.  The fourth week in October in each year is hereby named Arts Education Week.

Commencement

2.  This Act comes into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.

Short title

3.  The short title of this Act is the Arts Education Week Act, 2006.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

The purpose of the Bill is to make the fourth week in October in every year Arts Education Week.