Vigfúsína.is

Participants from Iceland
Ísland
Island in the Atlantic ocean

Björg Vigfúsína Kjartansdóttir
Is teaching 8 year olds this winter. Next winter she will be teaching 5 years old. She is interested in the integration of subjects, creative, computers in teaching and learning through play and adventure

Ebba Áslaug Kristjánsdóttir
is teaching 6 years old students this year. Next winter she will be teaching 7 years old She is a music teacher as well and she is especially intersested in combining music and activities with all subjects. She takes part in the Comenius project Nordic Youth Health it's our responsibility

Þóra Elísabet Keld
Is teaching 8 year olds this winter. Next winter she will be teaching 9 years old. She teaches Icelandic and mathematics. She has a special interest in problem solving. “Learning by doing” is her favourite phrase. She is a project manager in the school.

We are working in
Skóli Ísaks Jónssonar

The School
Ísaksskóli (School of Ísak Jónsson) is a small privatly run school in the center of Reykjavík. Our students are 230 children from the age of 5 to 9. The school specializes in educating young children. The school was founded in 1926 and follows the guidelines of the founder Ísak Jónsson

Multicultural teaching in our school

In our school we have about 2 or 3 students from other countries in each class. They come from different parts of the world.

In Iceland we have a brand new national curriculum now and for the first time there is a special focus on equality and multicultural education.

In Iceland in the first decade of this century there has been an increase in immigrants moving to the country. Approximately 8% of the icelandic population are immigrants. They come from all over the world with different languages, religions and cultures.

Iceland is a multicultural society now and the main purpose of the schools is to enhance respect and communications between different cultures, religions and believes and prevents prejudice.

A new Icelandic curriculum

In our school we don´t have a plan yet for multicultural teaching. We hope that after this course we can bring new ideas and help our school to make our own multicultural teaching plan ?

In the national curriculum there is a crucial question in how we should approach the multicultural teaching. Should the schools adjust to the immigrant students or should the new students adjust to the school. In Iceland the trend has been that new students adjust to the schools but now the emphasis is in on the other direction. In our opinion it is best if the schools and the new students meet in the middle.

Icelandic is a very difficult language and immigrants say that is the biggest problem when they immigrate to the country. In the new curriculum there is an emphasis on how we can help them to adjust while learning the language. There is also an emphasis on how schools should reflect different cultures, religions and believes.

Reykjavík capital of Iceland