Reykjavík Grapevine - 19.06.2015, Blaðsíða 36

She sits headmistressly upright, white
hair tied back, peering at me over her
glasses, listing all the things I really
should know by now.
“What do you use to wash a wooden
floor? What do you use on a concrete
floor? How do you clean your furniture
without destroying it? Because it’s very
easy to destroy it you know,” she con-
tinues matter-of-factly. “People buy a
leather sofa, a nice table, then they put
their washing on it. I never understand
that. Never. What’s it doing there?”
For a school principal, Margrét is
surprisingly charismatic, down to earth
and trendy. In her seventeen years as
principal she’s made a point to keep
Hússtjórnarskólinn relevant, while
also honouring the school’s traditions.
“When it started the school was very
strict indeed, but we have changed with
the times,” Margrét says. “Nowadays
even men can enrol. You could come
here if you wish,” she teases.
First days of school
The house on Sólvallagata which the
school has occupied since it opened in
1942 has more the feeling of a museum
than a school, with marble panelling
and a grand wooden banister staircase.
When Hússtjórnarskólinn opened,
it hosted 48 girls per nine-month term.
Back then, the girls would board in
neighbouring properties owned by the
school and a teacher slept on the prem-
ises, supervising at all times. “No one
had a key except the teacher and the
headmaster,” Margrét says with disbe-
lief. “Students were allowed to go out-
side for just 20 or 30 minutes per day.
That’s it.”
A past student from this period
whose home was in the next street but
was boarding at the school recently
recalled to Margrét that just once a
month she was allowed to go home.
“Only once,” she laughs.
Despite the strictness, Margrét
speaks of this period of schooling ad-
mirably. “It was a wonderful life; they
didn’t know anything else. And they be-
came close friends.”
So much so, that the class of women
who graduated in 1945 still to this day
meet every month to catch up. “It’s so
nice. Especially now that they are old-
er, because you never know,” Margrét
says.
Additionally, in Iceland in the 1940s
and 1950s, there were not many oppor-
tunities for girls to go to school, espe-
cially so for those from regional areas.
“A man called me a few weeks ago.
His elderly mother was one of the first
students of the school. He said that
she is always talking about the school,”
Margrét says.
For the elderly mother in ques-
tion, Hússtjórnarskólinn was the first
school she ever went to as she grew up
on one of the small remote islands in
Breiðafjörður, where home-schooling
was commonplace at the time.
“The man, her son, said she is al-
ways talking about how wonderful it
was and that the memories were so
beautiful. He said his mother had lost
her report card, and he asked if I could
make a new one for her. I said sure and
I sent it to her,” Margrét says smiling.
Milk from the cow,
not the carton
“Oh my god, it has changed a lot,” Mar-
grét says, rolling her eyes.
Nowadays, semesters at Hússtjór-
narskólinn are just three months long
and the school only accepts 24 stu-
dents per semester from the hundreds
who apply. The selection process is
largely first come, first served, but age
also plays a part in it.
“I can take them from the age of 16,
but they’re too young. It’s a full-time
load and at that age they’re not ready.
They have to knit or sew in the evening,
after being at school all day,” Margrét
says. “They have to grow up a little bit
first.”
For the majority of girls who at-
tend the school it is their decision to
come and not their parents’. “I would
never like to have girls who just came
because their parents wanted them to
come.”
Whereas in the early days Hússtjór-
narskólinn taught skills ideal for girls
wanting to be housewives, Margrét
says today’s students want to acquire
the skills necessary to live indepen-
dently. “They want to learn how to buy
proper meat and do something with it,
and to make their own bread. Not just
buy hamburgers and fried chicken and
pizza every day,” she says.
The syllabus doesn’t skimp out on
the processes behind food production
either. Margrét believes it’s equally im-
portant to know what is inside the food
as how to prepare it. “They learn about
the nutrients and vitamins in the food
and how much you need.” She tilts her
head forward, peering over her glasses.
“The milk doesn’t come from a carton; it
comes from a cow, you know,” Margrét
says.
A sleepover at school
Traditionally, many of the students
come from the countryside, but lately
there have been more and more enroll-
ing from Reykjavík. “They love to come
and stay here, because they’ve never
done this kind of thing before. They’ve
never had the opportunity to do it,” she
says.
The students all have keys to their
rooms and have the freedom to come
and go on their own time. Despite the
students being under her care, Margrét
is very much an advocate for building
trust by treating them as adults.
“They can sleep where they want.
I’m not going to tell one of the girls that
she cannot sleep with Jón or some-
thing. It’s not my problem,” Margrét
says. “You are over eighteen, if you are
not going to sleep in the house, you
just write it in the book down the hall,
so if you don’t turn up we know where
you are. It’s just like when you’re living
at home, you tell your mother ‘I’m at
my boyfriend’s house or at my friend’s
house.’”
Still, there are a few other solid
ground rules to respect if you wish to
study at Hússtjórnarskólinn.
“You’re not allowed to smoke or
drink in the house,” Margrét says. “We
have a housekeeper in the basement, a
woman of my age, and she is here dur-
ing the night. So if something happens,
she can call the doctor. And to make
sure they’re not going to host a party,”
she says to me sternly, as though I’d
contemplated it.
Can all this be a culture shock for
new students?
“Yes, it can be,” she says. “Not for
all, but for some.”
“We learn to make it work. What is
most important is to make a schedule.
They have to be organised to be able to
finish everything,” she says. “This takes
time to learn, you know. But it prepares
them for university, and beyond.”
“You know when you sit at a table and you see three or four
forks and you’re not sure where to start, we teach you all that
here,” school principal Margrét D. Sigfúsdóttir says primly
from behind her desk at Hússtjórnarskólinn, the Icelandic
home economics school where she has been at the helm
for seventeen years now. “It’s very important you’re never al-
lowed to just use a fork.”
Home School Away
From Home!
We get a lesson from the
principal of Iceland’s oldest
home economics school
Photo
Alisa Kalyanova
Words
Thomas L. Moir
36 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 8— 2015CULTURE
INTER
VIEW