Arts and Cultural Education in Iceland : Professor Anne Bamford

This vignette from an academic in the university gives insight into the concerns from the
suppliers of professional development:
Vignette 3.9.1 We used to have a system for offering in-service education
We used to have a system for offering in-service education. But now schools can choose for themselves. In 1996 the
municipalities took over the responsibility of in-service education. I think since then the offerings in the arts have been
gradually getting worse. There are very few opportunities in the arts and only a few teachers from a school can go. I
think everyone is unhappy. I think sometimes even the principal chooses the courses. They have to find something
that is relevant. The offers have decreased drastically. We offer courses through the university but these now have to
be fully economically costed and that makes them expensive. We have tried offering courses such as “Music and
movement for the whole school” but there was very little response. It ended up not running because there were so
few attendees. The unions and civil authorities also offer courses, but overall I think it is quite disjointed.
I think we need to rethink the whole approach to recurrent education for teachers. If we think about it another way, a
pre-primary school asked for a course about visual arts and then too many people came. We offer teachers the
opportunity to do a one year course, like a sabbatical year. But they have to come here to study. Each year about 20-
30 teachers take up that offer. Teacher education needs to be planned as a lifelong project. There is interest for
courses related to the arts and technology, like how to use ‘Garage Band’. But these are mainly offered by the labour
unions and I think that money becomes the motivation. We have had a 10% cut back in our funds so I guess making
money will be even more vital. We worry a lot as the university says courses with less than 15 people will be cut and
many of the arts courses have less than 10 people. Numbers generally in teacher education are declining. It will be a
difficult few years.
The notion of practice-based degrees – and professional learning pathways – for people in
education, the arts or creative industries is only just emerging. Most postgraduate programmes
are full-time, or are conducted during school time and so therefore are not accessible for
teachers who are teaching full-time. It has also been considered that ‘distance learning’ does not
provide an acceptable model for further education in the arts because of the inherently practical
nature of arts education.
While the vignette (3.9.1) was critical of the move to more local control of professional
education, other respondents spoke highly of the quality of some of the offers made at the local
level, as the following example shows:
A lady came in to give a course. The City Office organised the course. The City Office is very good. Each
municipality provides offers. She came from the Centre for Research in Early Childhood. The courses offered by
the City Office are free. She talked about the Penn green approach to early year’s education in England and I feel
in love with that approach. The course was a collaboration of 80 city schools. Since going to that course we have
become fired up. The teachers learnt that they can do art from nothing. Every day we are trying to put more art
in. Instead of the teachers making things, we learnt that children need to take ownership and do it themselves. It
is a method that works and is for everyone. I have been a classroom teacher for 45 years, but you can still learn
something new. I learnt that you can hang everything around a little seed of an idea. We made maps of high and
low places and that then lead to making models. Everything came from the children. Everything we needed was
at hand. Children learn things by thinking about it and by doing it themselves. You need to share something of
yourself.
Within the music schools, special provisions exist for continued professional education. In
2001 there was a wage agreement that included a 0.5% addition to cover professional
development of teachers in the music school. There is also music teacher association money that
can be applied for, as the following example shows: “We try as a whole staff group to go abroad
every third year. For example we all went abroad to do a course on using Sibelius software. We
have also been to concert series in Berlin and Italy. The next staff day we are doing a topic on
working with music and people with disabilities. The local authorities really only offer general
courses like health and safety and these are less relevant so it is really on us to be proactive and
build something relevant.” The Association of Music School Teachers has a fund that offers each
teacher support for professional development cost of up to 200.000 ISK every three years. In
addition, the support for a group educational trip is 60.000 ISK per teacher every 3rd year.
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