Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

has always been and it is 20 or 30 years behind. We need a system for the future. We have never had a
government that has had vision.
The focus should be on creativity, to enable people to start up new things, new businesses... The school system is
always old... creativity into all subjects, that will have to be a part of our revolution I'm afraid...
The final quote above – along with those that follow – show that while there is widespread
acknowledgement of the vital role of creativity in economic reform in Iceland, this is not being
fully developed through the schools system. A lack of creative teachers and school tradition are
in part given the blame. Additionally, members of the creative professions emphasise that the
arts themselves are not always creative.
Art and creativity is gaining importance – for the creative industries and the economy in general. Creative
thinking is, and will be, high on the agenda. If we want good education we have to think of creativity. Local
governments are responsible for the pre-primary schools, grammar schools, sports and music schools; this places
hefty responsibility/difficulties on the communes. We need to focus on more diversity as to the different art
forms offered.
I am afraid of skill versus creativity. What is creativity when you are seven years old? I get afraid when arts and
school is mentioned, it is damaging when you talk about teaching arts.
More creativity doesn’t need to be all so formal... more fusion... different art forms... Creativity is awakening in
education, one sees this in the official policy here... We are doing a lot of this already... the problem has been
that the professionals have not been willing to go into the schools...
The following vignette expresses the arguments for more integrated arts learning in Iceland:
Vignette 3.4.1 People’s view is very much awakening
People’s view is very much awakening. We are trying to emphasise creativity in all the planning of the school system.
Then what has been the problem is the lack of professionals wanting to teach in the schools. There is a lack of the
combination between the artists and the teachers working professionally side by side in the schools and I feel it more
successful in smaller country schools where they have to cooperate. Society depends upon cooperation but schools do
not operate in the same way. Students like coming in contact with creative subjects.
The advantage of the Icelandic system is that it is not hard to make a project. You can easily contact people and
different organisations. There are good things about working in a smaller place. Visual arts are very young but it is
having a bit of an explosion. We are getting fewer visitors to exhibitions than other places in the world; there are too
few hours and it is getting less. They are changing it in the curriculum they are giving it less importance and less time
is spent on it.
Arts should be seen to be on the top. It’s the most important thing but sometimes I think it is also viewed to be too
expensive. There is also this view that you can teach art just by talking, but there should be no excuse; money should
not be an excuse.
You do not have to be educated in teacher training to do the arts. What would be good was if qualified artists and
qualified teachers worked together. Last winter we have a collaborative exhibition with schools. It worked really well,
it made a huge difference, especially if the school had arts education as part of it. We saw a big difference in the levels
of the children’s appreciation and also the quality of the art they produced. Society in Iceland is not being taught to
appreciate the arts. We need to look at arts education, teaching art as a professional requirement in schools.
Schools do not tell enough about how importance the arts are. Most schools are based around the importance of
Maths, Icelandic and English. Arts need to be very important and should be given more weight. We need more
educated artists as teachers and more educated teachers as artists. You can teach a lot of subjects through the arts
for example, I teach English through the arts. We are not saying just singing in a school but really deep cultural
teaching.
We need more creative and cultural teaching. There is very little dance and drama in schools and they will not go
outside the box. The only dance that is taught is about movement. It might be in drama or children might learn some
old time dances in the sports club. There is nothing in public schools. There is nobody to come to the schools and
teach these subjects. Social ability courses could be an example. People need to feel they can push themselves to be
more forthcoming more confident more encouraged; this is lacking in Icelandic people. When parents see this develop
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