Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

More documents

Recommendations

Info

eginners; pedagogical training; communication and observation of teachers inside and outside schools. This course started 2 years ago as extensions of the music programme, but less than 50% of the students take this pathway. It was also argued that the lack of distance education courses in the arts limited professional development. To get qualified the music teachers have to go to Reykjavík for qualification. Why can music teachers not get qualifications without going to day school in Reykjavik? This appears really important point. This has been an option for general teachers so why not in music? The counter position though argued that a distance mode may not work for the arts, as the following quotes suggest: We don’t do distance learning. I don’t think it works for this type of learning . I am personally into it but it’s no good for arts education. We tried it and student evaluations were very low. We have given it up in music. Distance education is good, but difficult to do in the arts – getting the students for 2-3 weeks a year for 2-3 hours, otherwise the only contact is through the computer. While there is a commitment to research at the policy level, there is less current research activity from the teacher education sector itself. Within the teacher education institutions for primary teachers and the early years of high school, research appears to receive little priority. 5.3 Quality monitoring ‣ The arts educational community in Iceland needs to consider methods of quality assurance that are appropriate in this context Within Iceland there are claims of good quality and equally strong claims of falling quality. The contention of this research would be that in a general sense and compared to other countries, Iceland has a strong commitment to the arts and the quality is strong. To ensure this continues to be the case and that areas that can be enhanced receive adequate attention, ongoing systems of quality monitoring should be considered. Peer evaluation and international benchmarking should become a regular part of Icelandic arts and cultural education. There are laws that say that every school should be doing the arts but there is so much decentralisation that we do not know if everyone is following it, are they implementing it; there is no monitoring. The law needs to emphasise checking a lot more. We are waiting for the new curriculum. All types of arts education should be evaluated, including what occurs in after school activities. Importantly, young people need to be involved in quality monitoring and the results of such monitoring need to be shared with service users and parents. Informally, especially in smaller communities, a great deal of informal evaluation does occur and pupils and parents will make choices in terms of perceived quality, as the following quote suggests: The parents wouldn't know, but people do ask around. The policy is that the schools should have self evaluation policy in addition to the external evaluation that is done. Annually, we can only externally evaluate few schools – e.g. sample 4-5 preschools and 3-4 compulsory schools. There is no official ranking of schools. There is however more student evaluation in the compulsory schools (standardized tests). Parents in the focus groups were keen to gain more information about quality and saw quality as being an important issue: We should focus on the main things and make sure students get quality teaching. I want my children to have a choice and be taught properly 110
During the research, various school types were asked about the areas they thought needed improved quality. In dance schools, the major improvements that were felt to be needed weremore cooperation between schools and with parties outside the school, especially compulsory and secondary schools. Only around 60% of dance schools had any level of cooperation with other schools. Other levels of cooperation were similarly quite low. Better teaching material and increased teaching time were also key priorities for improvement. Of lesser importance – but still a priority – were better educated teachers. In music schools, increased time was seen as the major area needing improvement (see Figure 5.3.1). Figure 5.3.1 Improving arts education in schools (Music) There are many assumptions about the quality of music schools in Iceland but these are largely made without reference to external benchmarking. It is argued that “Our music programmes are a very good system and have produced many good professional musicians. We are good compared to the Scandinavians.” An FIH staff member argued that the music schools in Iceland offer good value for money stating that; “Finland has a very high standard but they put a lot of money in. Norwegians are also putting a lot of money in.” As comparative statistics are not available at this stage, it is difficult to ascertain the veracity of this claim. There is also opinion expressed about quality that counteracts perceptions of quality: The system of music schools is not changing. Schools are in a dead end. Iceland has the reputation for having famous and well-respected systems, but really music schools are like independent kingdoms. No one is speaking to each other. Some of the foreign students we reject are better than the local students we accept. We need more dialogue with the colleges informing them about the requirements for entry. We need to build a lot of bridges. Senior high schools promote the idea of theatre being fun but they do not instil the discipline of the theatre. The standard of knowledge is very rocky. They do not cover enough theory in the high schools… They do not have technical skills. Similar complaints about quality are made from other art forms: Applications from abroad are of a better quality (visual arts) Students need more focus on what a good portfolio should look like. We are looking for different students – students with a strong vision. We take no notice of the documents that come from the schools as they are fictional. The preparation they have had at school is often useless. It is usually an insider who determines quality. The pupils have had 6 years of textile in the compulsory school but don’t even know how to thread a needle. I think all children should be introduced to the various crafts, but then pupils need to be able to choose. We also need more links between the fields of design. It is a problem, we always try to make things fun. The level of 111
Page 1 and 2:
Arts and Cultural Education in Icel
Page 3 and 4:
Acknowledgements This research woul
Page 5 and 6:
Helga Rut Guðmundsdóttir Helgi Vi
Page 7 and 8:
5.4.2 Talent developement..........
Page 9 and 10:
practices, but in reality there are
Page 11 and 12:
Chapter 1: Introduction and overvie
Page 13 and 14:
school type to which the comment re
Page 15 and 16:
A future study could examine specif
Page 17 and 18:
The number of pupils with a foreign
Page 19 and 20:
pre-primary school teachers were so
Page 21 and 22:
Figure 1.5.3: How useful is the Nat
Page 23 and 24:
The conclusions from this report in
Page 25 and 26:
primary level exceptional students
Page 27 and 28:
‣ Schools and colleges should be
Page 29 and 30:
Increasingly, schools are becoming
Page 31 and 32:
here, it is a good cooperation. We
Page 33 and 34:
In terms of suggested improvements
Page 35 and 36:
There are 300 hundred pupils in thi
Page 37 and 38:
Figure 1.12.2 Accessibility of the
Page 39 and 40:
e active in a range of local profes
Page 41 and 42:
schools have waiting lists of child
Page 43 and 44:
Going to local schools… well we t
Page 45 and 46:
in theatre. The students really lov
Page 47 and 48:
We had a great show. The teachers d
Page 49 and 50:
lot of satisfaction out of the proc
Page 51 and 52:
Chapter 2 World Benchmarking 2.1 In
Page 53 and 54:
Chapter 3: Responses to quality 3.1
Page 55 and 56:
Figure 3.2.1 Compulsory school coll
Page 57 and 58:
In the survey, dance schools report
Page 59 and 60: The school is participating in the
Page 61 and 62: visitors. The diverse and ‘quirky
Page 63 and 64: A smaller group of girls performs a
Page 65 and 66: Figure 3.3.6 Pupil performances in
Page 67 and 68: way the children’s artworks were
Page 69 and 70: has always been and it is 20 or 30
Page 71 and 72: ‣ Funding should encourage risk t
Page 73 and 74: music sector could be less constrai
Page 75 and 76: Conversely, the accessibility of ou
Page 77 and 78: Vignette 3.7.4 Every day there are
Page 79 and 80: Despite the geographical challenges
Page 81 and 82: In visual arts we mainly assess acc
Page 83 and 84: We try to do professional developme
Page 85 and 86: This vignette from an academic in t
Page 87 and 88: in offering adult education. Other
Page 89 and 90: demanding more of our schools and t
Page 91 and 92: It was argued that the arts may not
Page 93 and 94: (teacher a professional photographe
Page 95 and 96: There is a lot of respect amongst p
Page 97 and 98: “The popularity of pop music is g
Page 99 and 100: Others would argue that the connect
Page 101 and 102: interrelationship with nature and c
Page 103 and 104: From this summary, it can be seen t
Page 105 and 106: training of senior secondary arts t
Page 107 and 108: Vignette 5.2.4 Our selection proces
Page 109: There is a lack of connection betwe
Page 113 and 114: The following sections are other as
Page 115 and 116: For older pupils, there are electiv
Page 117 and 118: Before I came here no-one was doing
Page 119 and 120: Creative and cultural industries Mo
Page 121 and 122: While the previously listed recomme
show all

Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?