Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

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Almost everything we do is arts related. The children learn through the arts. It is part of their lives. Free play is very important. They learn to make choices. We encourage the children to use their imagination. Their work is always their ideas. Working with the arts is an important form of communication. I think within the school system, pre-primary school is definitely the most creative. In the pre-primary school you are free to experiment with everything. I think the compulsory school teachers need to learn from the pre-primary school teachers. Teachers want to come here. It is a nice place to work. It is a good place to let your ideas grow. I really try to support the staff. We encourage and support creativity. The atmosphere and attitude affects the mood and then this view spreads across the school. In the town there are 6 pre-primary schools and we all share our practice. Two days per year the pre-primary school is closed to pupils and we can have a meeting and bring someone from the university, but it is expensive, maybe 120,000 ISK for 4 hours. So as much as possible we try to use the talent of the staff here. And participate in courses the town offers. These only cost around 30,000 ISK. But there are very few offers in the arts. They had an offer ‘Dance for Children’. The final vignette (1.9.5) is for a preschool that follows an Icelandic early years’ philosophy known as Hjalli 12 . The preschool separates boys and girls for learning. They have highly developed assessment techniques and take the children to professional exhibitions. They employ specialist arts teachers to work with the children. Vignette 1.9.5We give students the freedom to shape their world This pre-primary school operates under Hjalli pedagogy – an Icelandic early childhood theory of learning that promotes outdoor learning and discourages giving toys to children, instead favouring the development of a child’s imaginative potential. Boys and girls are taught in separate classes but mix socially at points throughout the day. The school has been operating since 2007. They encourage the employment of specialist teachers and have specialist teachers for art, music and computers. The children are encouraged to work with open materials and to make the most of the inside and outside environment. The children are regularly taken to museums and exhibitions. The principal of the school has noticed the impact on pupils and teachers; “Parents say that their children talk a lot more. They notice that the children are calmer and creative and that they are more curious. We have had a lot of comments that the children’s behaviour has improved. They use space imaginatively. It is very positive to not have toys. We give the children real things. The children do plays and sing and dance every day. We provide open clothes that they turn into costumes. They make puppets. Teachers who come here notice that the children are more positive to one another.” “The staff work closely together. The children are well-behaved and independent. They have good self esteem. There seems to be a challenge though when the children go from here into the compulsory school. One parent told me, “My son got bored so quickly in compulsory school. He started closing his mind to things.” We give students the freedom to shape their world.” “Teaching in the pre-primary school is exceptional, then there is a gap between the compulsory school.” 12 http://www.hjalli.is/ The Hjalli pedagogy is mostly known for its method of segregating girls and boys in preschool classes to liberate the children from traditional sex-roles and stereotypic behaviours. Children at the Hjallastefnan preschools receive training in all human qualities as we believe that all children should have all the possibilities in the world regardless of their sex. The Hjalli pedagogy only uses open ended material instead of traditional toys and believes that positive discipline is the way to train social skills. The Hjallastefnan organization now runs nine preschools in Iceland; Akur, Ásar, Hjalli, Hólmasól, Hraunborg, Laufásborg, Litlihjalli, Litluásar and Vollur. Hjallastefnan also runs three elementary schools for students up to nine years old; Hafnarfjörður, Reykjavík and Vífilsstaðir. 32
In terms of suggested improvements in the preschool, Figure 1.9.6 based on the survey findings suggests that better educated teachers is the key matter for improvement, while preschools would also welcome more cooperation with people and organisations outside the preschool. Figure 1.9.6 Improvements needed in preschools # 1 is the most important and 7 is the least important 33
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: here, it is a good cooperation. We
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
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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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Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

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