Dr. philos Dóra S. Bjarnason

Professor of sociology and disability studies.

Iceland University of Education.

v/ Stakkahlíð, 105 Reykjavík, Iceland.

http://starfsfolk.khi.is/dora

School reforms and the reconstruction of the (Special) teacher Education in Iceland in the 20th century

Introduction

The Icelandic value base is ruggedly individualistic and egalitarian. For over a millennium, the community, living on scattered farms around Iceland, has been obliged to take care of people in need. No public schools existed in traditional Iceland, but literacy on religious texts was apparently widespread, and became almost universal after the law prescribing the teaching of children to read from 1790. Not until a century later or 1880 a law was set on teaching children to write and do arithmetic (Guttormsson 1983). The home education system was gradually replaced by the public education law of 1907. For generations, parents, grandparents or a farm worker able to read, served as teachers, but the parish priests supervised the learning of reading and religion. This education culminated in the confirmation ritual which in the 19th century took place at the age of 14-15. Some clergy and other learned men helped a few promising and/ or better off boys and young men prepare for academic learning. Some better off farmers hired home teachers, but with the advance of the 19th century local farmers or communities hired perambulatory teachers who traveled between farms and taught children for a few weeks at the time. Most of these teachers were not specially trained as teachers. In the late 19th and early 20th century towns and villages were gradually emerging and with them schools, but the perambulatory teachers prevailed in rural areas well into the 20th century. See (Guttormsson 1983), (Guttormsson 2000). A one year teacher education was first provided in 1892 but the Teachers College of Iceland was established in 1908, and provided teacher training for compulsory school teachers. In 1971 the college was changed and upgraded to what is now called the Iceland University of Education.

Currently there are three major teacher education institutions in Iceland; the Iceland University of Education is by far the largest institution for educating compulsory education teachers and developmental therapists, and it also offers a certification program for upper secondary teachers holding diplomas in fine art, technical and vocational areas. The second is the teacher education program at the University of Iceland, a certification program designed for university graduates holding Baccalaureus or higher degrees in academic subjects for upper secondary teachers. The third is the University of Akureyri in the north, established in 1993, with a department providing certification programs for teachers at all three educational levels. All three institutions have built into one or more programs issues related to inclusive schooling and individualized learning, all three provide optional courses in disability studies and possibilities to do M.Ed. degrees within the areas of special education and disability studies, but only the Iceland University of Education provides post graduate diploma and M.Ed. program for special education teachers.

Teacher training for learners with special educational needs or disabilities in socio-Educational context

In Iceland like in most other western countries the first teachers who specialized in working with learners with special needs were trained to work with deaf learners. In 1820 to 1867 twenty- four Icelandic children described as “mute” were sent to the Royal Deaf and Dumb Institute in Copenhagen, for their education. The Institute was established in 1807 and based on the famous l’Epée school for the Deaf in Paris. Unfortunately a third of the Icelandic students died due to poor hygene at the school. This prompted the authorities to provide a grant for the training of an Icelandic clergyman, Páll Pálsson, as a teacher for the deaf. Pálsson educated deaf children at his home on a farm in the north of Iceland from 1867 to his death 1890. Two years later another clergyman established a school for deaf students at his farm in the south of Iceland and hired teachers specially trained in Denmark, as teachers of the deaf. That school was moved to Reykjavík in 1908 and operated in one form or another until 1944, emphasizing sign language and finger language and also educating some learners with mild intellectual disabilities. That year a new principal educated in Scotland brought in oral language teaching and the teaching of lip-reading, which prevailed until 1980 when sign language teaching prevailed again. The story of deaf education goes back to a formally traditional poor rural society with virtually no schools. The early 20th century saw radical changes in the Icelandic society, which is by the beginning of the 21st century a highly urban, wealthy, technological society with a modern educational system to match.

1907-1945: The first steps towards catering for learners with special needs

The period from 1907 until the end of the second world war can be characterized as the formative years of developing public schools for children and youth. Educators, doctors, parents and the first Icelandic psychologists began to point out children’s’ need for care, expressing concern for orphans, sick, poor and neglected children, and for “problem children”, but these voices carried slowly at first. Gradually new ideas, pedagogical skills and practices were imported. A teacher was sent to Denmark in 1932-33 in order to learn how to teach blind children, and a school for the blind was established in 1933. The first institution for orphans and children with intellectual impairments, a Rudolf Steiner institution, opened in 1931. The first law on the protection of children was set in 1932, and the first law on Idiot Sanctuaries appeared in 1936. As we come to the end of this period the stage is set for a variety of institutional solutions for children and youth with special needs for care and specialized education.

1945-1974: The formative years of a modern educational system and of special education Practices

Iceland emerged from the WW2 period richer and more urban than ever before. In the early WW2 years fish catches were good and prices high on the world market. The country was taken over by first the British and then the USA armed forces during the war, and the armed forces brought full employment, rising wages, and significant investment in infrastructure. On the political front, Iceland gained full independence from Denmark and became a modern democratic state in 1944. Further more, after the war Iceland received considerable Marshall Aid which was used to modernize the country’s main economic sectors.

The post war period brought an array of new institutions and new ideas and practices for children and youth seen to have special needs. New professions, such as educational psychologists, special educators and therapists of various types emerged and began to impact schools and other pedagogical institutions. In the 1950s and 1960s psychologists pioneered research in children’s’ level of school maturity, IQ tests gained respect and came into widespread use for placing children in ability grouped classes. Further, teachers formed an association to help students with special needs, special classes for the support of slow learners came into use in Reykjavík and some of the larger towns, and in 1961 a young highly educated special educator, Magnus Magnusson, who had studied in Germany and Switzerland, was appointed principal of a school established by the Reykjavík town for students with mild intellectual impairments (IQ 70-85), who lived at home with their parents. This was the first time that such students could attend school without moving to a total institution for people with intellectual disabilities. But four new total institutions for people with intellectual impairments were added to the Rudolf Steiner institution (form 1932), in this period. All these institutions had some kind of schooling for young inmates. However a few children with intellectual impairments were admitted to regular schools and early childhood programs, particularly in the rural areas, on an individual basis, probably since before 1907. In such cases they sat in class with regular students, but were not really expected to learn much and rarely got appropriate materials or adapted teaching.

In the 1960s and 1970s most Icelandic special educators studied in Statens Spesiallærehögskole in Oslo. But in 1968 the Teachers College in Reykjavík began to offer a one year course in special education for practicing teachers. The course was modeled on the first year program in Spesiallærehögskolen in Oslo, and many of the Icelandic teachers completed the second year of studies there. In the period of 1968 to 1984 The Teachers College in Reykjavík (and after 1971 the Iceland University of Education) offered seven such one year programs. In all 169 teachers graduated as specialists mostly in teaching children with moderate educational needs and children with reading problems.

Applications into to the special education program at the Teachers College, now promoted to university status, began to fall of around 1974. In that year a new comprehensive educational legislation for compulsory schools came into being, making integration and appropriate individualized education the law of the land (1974). (1974)The new integration ideology began to take hold and teachers became critical of the clinical, medical model approach to special education, which had been at the core of the special education program, and of the segregated special classes (Sigurdsson 1993) (Kristinsdóttir 1984)

1974-2004: (Special) educators trained for working in integrated and inclusive schools

The Icelandic society was gradually becoming more diverse in terms of socio-economic status, nationality and ethnic background. Most Icelanders lived in the urban areas, particularly in and around Reykjavík. The new education law from 1974 created a frame for the modernization and reconstruction of the Icelandic educational system. A new national curriculum from 1976 emphasized the individuals’ right to learn and be taught in an appropriate manner for his or her ability, in concert with typical age-peers. Grouping children into classes on the basis of ability as shown by psychological tests and school grades was not recognised any longer. It also drew attention to new pedagogical demands due to the new diversity of learners (1976). A new statutory special education regulation was published in 1977, in that the Ministry of Education attempted to bridge the gap between the old special education practices and the new ideology of integration and the need for a variety of remedial educational options (1977). Special schools and classes for students with significant disabilities were to be maintained, but pull – out special education teaching arrangement and other non-segregating teaching practices were gradually to replace the special classes for non disabled learners with special educational needs. A new special school for children and youth with severe intellectual and multi impairments opened in Reykjavík in 1982, providing the last group of learners access to compulsory education schooling. The 9th and 10th decades of the 20th century also gradually opened upper-secondary and adult educational programs for intellectually impaired learners, learners with hearing impairment and for blind, mentally ill and autistic learners. By 2004 only three special schools remain in the country, two for intellectually disabled learners and the third for compulsory school students labeled with significant behavioral problems. Furthermore special classes for disabled learners, particularly learners with intellectual impairments have emerged at most upper secondary schools.

Actual change was slow in the implementation of the integration and inclusion policy. By 1980 the number of special classes in general education schools grew again in number, specially such classes for the older compulsory school students (aged 12-16). A growing number of students were diagnosed with ADHlD, autistic and other disorders (and some were prescribed Ritalin) (Morthens 2004). All this may suggest that general teachers found it difficult to deal with the new diversity within their classrooms, and that both the general – and the special educators lacked pedagogical skills to teach effectively heterogeneous groups of students. This was further influenced by the new and diverse gallery of specialists.

The Iceland University of Education responded to this in 1985 by offering a new postgraduate program in special education. The program, which was a BA program, consisted of a 60 unit theoretical study program in special education and 15 units of professional development in schools. Only certified teachers were admitted. A British special education expert, helped prepare and run the new program for two years. He brought with him a different perspective, influenced by special education reforms in Britain following the Warnock report. The program has also been influenced by Swedish and American special education and disability scholars. From 1985 to 1995 the program was taught through distance learning using both the internet and small localized groups of teachers situated at different parts of Iceland. Now, graduates from the program are certified with a 30 unit diploma in special education, and a number of the graduates continue and do an Med. research degree. In the 1990s applicants for the diploma degree in special education have been practicing teachers from all school levels from early childhood to upper secondary school teachers and social pedagogues. Since 1985 521 students have graduated as special educators from the diploma program and 34 have completed their Med. degree in the field. The program aims at educating teachers to work in inclusive schools in teaching and management. Some of its courses are still characterised by the medical model approach, but the program is currently coming up for revision and change which seems to bring it further in concert with the state of the art inclusion and disability scholarship, and the new individualized learning educational policy (Marinósson 2004). The future of post graduate special education degree courses is under discussion, and the program may within the next few years change into the training of leaders for inclusive schooling practices, where the term special educator will be replaced by the term inclusion facilitator.

An effort is also being made to train undergraduate general education student teachers in individualized heterogeneous group teaching skills both at the Iceland University of Education, at the Department of Education at The University of Akureyri, and to some extent at the University of Iceland. This is considered necessary with regard to the latest versions of the education legislation (1994), (1995) (1996) and the national curricular for all school levels that emphasize inclusive education and individualized group teaching. However it is hard to change the practice of schools, and despite efforts to reequip general educators to teach effectively in diverse heterogeneous schools and classes in the spirit of inclusive schooling, there is still a way to go for that to become the reality of all school practice.