Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

the curriculum. It is argued that they quickly adapt to life within the Icelandic music school and
make a significant contribution. The following example is indicative of a more general picture: “4
out of 9 of our teachers are international. We have 2 teachers from Hungary, 1 from the USA
and 1 from Britain. All have been here now for at least 10 years. They are much more flexible.”
Music school teachers tend to rely on teaching as their main (or major) source of income, but
contribute in a range of ways to the overall musical milieu of a community. The question of
whether the music school teachers see themselves more as teachers or as musicians was
problematic as the following quotes exemplify:
This is a very delicate question. Many would like to be fulltime musicians but they have to teach to earn money,
but in this school the majority are predominantly teachers. Many of the teachers though play in the orchestra in
the town. It is hard to juggle teaching and being a professional musician.
Most music teachers in the smaller towns have to do a whole heap of things just to make a living. For example,
they might conduct the choir in the church, teach some students, give some private lessons, become involved in
European music projects, and participate in summer music festivals.
The following example (Vignette 1.12.9) of an alternative music school presents a model of a
music and ‘arts school’ where the practice is quite different from the majority of Icelandic music
schools visited as part of this research:
Vignette 1.12.9 It is very different here
A group of three year olds with their parents are learning music together. The music school is operated in a
building with a sense of the makeshift about it. The class is full to overflowing. The teacher has written a number of
books on how teachers and parents can work together in introducing children to music.
The music school started 25 years ago and they do not get government funding. The parents pay for the lessons
the children receive. They all work together children and parents and they offer a number of different workshops with
youngest students being around three years and the eldest being around eighty years but they also receive a lot of
teenagers and the teachers are active professionals in the field.
The music school is small with very little space. They are very selective of the teachers and choose carefully. They
also encourage intergenerational learning, child, parent and grandparent all working beside each other.
“There are special programmes for teenagers here from theatre workshops to African dance, and these are very
popular. In fact all kinds of dancing are offered hip hop, jazz and so on. We design the broadest possible programme
to appeal to everybody.”
The music school also brings in foreign teachers to conduct interesting workshops. These operate only through
subscription. The music school has been nearly bankrupted several times.
The children pay around 17,000 Icelandic Kroner for three months and they come around once a week for
lessons. The lessons are group lessons with approximately 12 pupils per teacher. The music school has kept the same
prices for several years.
In the last year, they have noticed a downturn in teenagers attending, a 50 percent downturn in fact, since the
economic crash. They comment; “It is interesting; parents will not pay for teenagers but will pay for their young
children. In the three, four, five, and six year old groups there is a waiting list, whereas in the teenagers they are in
short supply.” Currently, they do not have enough teachers to be able to teach to the demand.
“It is very different here though, we do not necessarily follow the curriculum and our teachers have freedom. We
work very closely together and can integrate across areas, dance music and arts for example can all work together.
We do a lot of work with special needs children and young people. We have a Down syndrome theatre company and
it is incredible what they are able to do. The dance teacher also works a lot with improvisation and she was taught in
Germany. We get teachers from all over the world. Another teacher has gone off now and started her own school, she
was educated in Stockholm. She specialises in creative dance. We try and get our students to perform internationally
and I think we have done a lot to spread the news of what is happening in Iceland. We do lots of shows for parents
but we do not focus on that as it is definitely now process not product.”
“We did a great project around Shakespeare, the 12 and 13 year olds loved doing Romeo and Juliet, it was
fantastic. The guy who played Romeo was actually deaf. Out of that group many people have actually gone on to work
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