Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

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Relaxed atmosphere 2 High level of interest in the art 4 People attend arts events 7 You can earn an income 4 Local companies will give money to the arts (though this might change) 1 Resourceful people 1 A lot of activity happening (festivals) 5 Good organisational structures 1 Multicultural activities 1 Broad definitions of the arts 1 Publicity 1 These overall strengths were mirrored in the following comments from internationally successful members of the creative industries in Iceland: There is plenty to do. The community is so strong. The arts are not a narrow thing here. They are really widespread. The community supports activities and talent can really develop. Many of the arts activities have a social dimension. Creative people bring a resonance to the community. They don’t accept you straight away. You do have to prove yourself. In the beginning I did all kinds of jobs. You have to give a lot of time for free, but then things start to happen. I began to sell works in the local cafe. There is not a commercial gallery in the town. I have also travelled internationally, but you need money to travel. International shows are a great place to sell works, but it takes funds. We used to be able to apply for funds to travel shows. There is a common interest in all the arts and strong traditions in culture. It is easy to get people involved. People have an ear for music and like it. I think Iceland is a particularly artistic community. But the results are not always evident. Things are not sold. The size of the country and opportunities, fearlessness of growing up, changes to study whatever we want to... Icelanders are harnessing their creative energies, even though not professionals, most have the opportunity to practice their talent... Making money out of our art is slim, but still so many people are doing it... Iceland is the creative melting pot... I'm absorbed in New York by the fashion industry, it's so big... The slice of the creative melting pot is the biggest one I've seen anywhere – Milan, Rome, New York... ...merchant driven companies, thus you are not lead by any commercialism... the melting pot is in the society, not in the schools. The Arts Academy is the only place where there is a melting pot... Arts and craft are strong in the public schools but tend to drift away in favour of the academic subjects... People from abroad envy us for having special music rooms, rooms for wood work etc... From Figure 1.4.2 also the qualitative comments, it can be seen that Iceland has a number of key strengths. Freedom and community support seem to be of great importance, as is the structure of the schools and the underlying artistic development that occurs in the music schools (even for those not being musicians). These strengths provide an excellent context for the arts to flourish, but as the qualitative comments indicate, there are challenges that sit along side the strengths. The music scene is very active and well-supported by the community. There are a number of festivals over the spring and summer months. The level of this community support is evident in the following vignette: Vignette 1.4.3 We were able to find the funding ourselves In 2000, Reykjavik was the European Capital of Culture, I said to the director of this project we can get 2000 students to work and we did all of this without any budget. We worked around it, the pre-primary school said yes and we started with this school then the next, then the next. We got the teachers working with the class to explore themes like water, earth, wind, fire and so on. We made the structure and had workshops and then the teachers went off and did the work. Every school got portraits of each child and you can still see some of those portraits around. We went to a composer and the composer composed a piece of music, working alongside teenagers and six year olds and they created beautiful music. We went to the banks to raise money but they said they can’t pay and we needed more than 1million. We went to the ministry, all the children came and they closed the streets off. We sold coffee to the parents and posters of the children, and so we raised the money ourselves. We also recorded a CD and we sold this and raised money. It seemed like it was all hopeless at the start but we were able to find the funding ourselves. The beautiful 18
pre-primary school teachers were so helpful though I was surprised that none of the banks would do it; it is very ironic. We then had a pyjamas party for all of the people involved and it went really well. This level of community support was equally evident away from the capital: Vignette 1.4.4 We don’t see other people and we are isolated In this town everyone gives a lot for nothing. There are very few people so it is difficult to survive. There is not enough work for professional actors. The weather is a challenge too. It is unpredictable. Transport is hard. We don’t see other people and we are isolated. That can be a strength and a weakness to the creative process. I would say in our town the arts are blooming but not spreading. There is a bit of an attitude that we are not as good here... less professional. But if you look at the academy in Reykjavik, our students are getting in there. So there is quality there if you look at it objectively. In this town, all the companies support the arts. There is a very high level of local support. We are lucky with this as central government is not active here. They should put more support in here. It is difficult to travel. 1.5 Policy Cooperation and curriculum ‣ Meetings should occur on a regular basis between those people responsible for culture and education at the national, municipal and local level to encourage shared strategic thinking and communication of good practices and initiatives ‣ The curriculum is open and flexible but in reality taught in a very similar way around the country ‣ The curriculum is considered valuable for establishing overall objectives but of less value in terms of teaching and learning content and method and ways of assessing. The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture is responsible for the policies and methods that schools must use, and they issue the National Curriculum Guidelines. There are different types of schools: Pre-primary school or leikskóli; which are non-compulsory for children younger than six years, and is the first step in the education system. Compulsory education, or grunnskóli; which comprises primary and lower secondary education, generally conducted at the same institution. Upper secondary education or framhaldsskóli; which follows lower secondary education and is not compulsory. Figure 1.5.1 Percentage of budget by level of schooling Public educational expenditure, percentage breakdown by school level, 2006 Pre-primary 8.2% Compulsory 49.7% Upper secondary 18.3% Higher education, tertiary level 18.2% Other 5.6% (Source: Statice, 2006) Education is mandatory by law for children aged from 6 to 16 years. All schools in Iceland are mixed sex schools. The law in Iceland is that communities are to create their own policies and each school its own curricula. The majority of schools publish their curriculum on the web and make it generally available. The most commonly provided information includes: When the school operates. Lists of subjects taught at the school. General information on the administration of the school. 19
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: The number of pupils with a foreign
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
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has always been and it is 20 or 30
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‣ Funding should encourage risk t
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music sector could be less constrai
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Conversely, the accessibility of ou
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Vignette 3.7.4 Every day there are
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Despite the geographical challenges
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In visual arts we mainly assess acc
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We try to do professional developme
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This vignette from an academic in t
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in offering adult education. Other
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demanding more of our schools and t
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It was argued that the arts may not
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(teacher a professional photographe
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There is a lot of respect amongst p
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“The popularity of pop music is g
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Others would argue that the connect
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interrelationship with nature and c
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From this summary, it can be seen t
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training of senior secondary arts t
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Vignette 5.2.4 Our selection proces
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There is a lack of connection betwe
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During the research, various school
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The following sections are other as
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For older pupils, there are electiv
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Before I came here no-one was doing
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Creative and cultural industries Mo
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While the previously listed recomme
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