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Exhibition "Protest.bewegt.Uni - 50 years of protest cultures at the University of Oldenburg"

The old teachers' seminar on Peterstraße (article by the city museum)

Master's programme Museum and Exhibition

Master's programme Cultural Analyses

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Exhibition team (Head: Wencke Bammann and Mafalda Nogueira)

Instagram channel of the exhibition

The old teacher training college

Becoming a teacher was not difficult in the Duchy of Oldenburg until the end of the 18th century: after a short examination by the local clergy, the newly qualified "pedagogues" were allowed to teach. It was only when the ideas of the Enlightenment came to Germany in the wake of the French Revolution that Oldenburg's Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig decided to professionalise education. From 1793, the church finally ran the Protestant teacher training college in Oldenburg. The lessons for the prospective teachers initially took place in the back rooms of pubs. From 1807, the seminary was housed on Wallstraße in the building that is now the police station, before moving into a new building on Peterstraße in 1846 - the location of the "Protest.bewegt.Uni" exhibition.

The training was tough: seminar days lasted up to 16 hours and were barely interrupted by breaks. A timetable from 1828 includes physics, maths and spelling, as well as singing, sport and catechism exercises. From 1882, the seminarians also worked in the teaching garden near Ofener Straße - which later became the university's Botanical Garden. The fact that the seminary was organised as a boarding school and the students were treated more like cadets was met with criticism in the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1840s at the latest. As late as 1872, an Oldenburg teacher described the seminary in a polemic as a "training centre for pedagogical day labourers". The Oldenburg government, which had taken over teacher training from the church in 1855, finally took the criticism seriously: it abolished the boarding school in 1875 and gradually extended the training period from a few months at the beginning to six years. From the end of the 19th century, the training also included more practical content and technical subjects.

Women were only able to train as teachers in the state of Oldenburg from 1902, and from 1921 the training took place in the same premises on Peterstraße where the men were taught. However, the phase of cross-gender training was not to last long: Teacher training was academised during the Weimar Republic. The Oldenburg teacher training college was unable to keep up with these new standards and closed its doors in 1927. A few short-lived replacement institutions were followed by the College of Education, founded in 1945. It was integrated into the university in 1973.

Text: Henning Kulbarsch

  • The picture shows Wencke Bammann and Mafalda Nogueira. They are holding up an oversized yellow T-shirt with the inscription "Our last shirt. School 3" up high. An organ and benches from the old teachers' seminar can be seen in the background.

    Wencke Bammann (left) and Mafalda Nogueira are part of the team organising the exhibition "Protest.bewegt.Uni - 50 Jahre Protestkulturen an der Uni Oldenburg". The "last shirt" is a recurring metaphor for the struggle for better study conditions. This example dates from 2004 and played a role in protests against the introduction of tuition fees. University of Oldenburg / Daniel Schmidt

  • The picture shows the exclusively male graduates of the 1884 class of the old teacher training college. They are sitting or standing and looking into the camera. They are all wearing suits and ties. In front of them is a barrel labelled "1880 to 1884".

    For a long time, the old teacher training college on Peterstraße was only open to men. Here the graduating class of 1884. Women were only allowed to train as teachers from the early 20th century. Photo: Oldenburg City Museum

  • The picture shows the old teacher training centre from Peterstraße. A two-storey building with windows can be recognised. The architecture is functional.

    The building of the old teachers' seminar (here in 1955) on Peterstraße now serves as the headquarters of the Oldenburg regional office of the State Construction Management (North-West Region). Photo: Oldenburg City Museum

"Protest is not always against something"

Anniversary Campus Life Culture

Together with the Oldenburg City Museum, students are presenting an unusual anniversary exhibition in the auditorium of the old teachers' seminar. Its title: "Protest.bewegt.Uni - 50 years of protest cultures at the University of Oldenburg".

From 10 March to 5 May, students and the Oldenburg City Museum are presenting an unusual anniversary exhibition in the auditorium of the old teachers' seminar. Its title: "Protest.bewegt.Uni - 50 years of protest cultures at the University of Oldenburg". Ten students from the degree programmes "Museum and Exhibition" and "Cultural Analysis" are contributing an important programme item to the anniversary year with this self-conceived exhibition. Wencke Bammann and Mafalda Nogueira explain how the idea for the exhibition came about and what unexpected insights they had during the preparations.

 

"Protests and political movements" - why did you choose this theme of all things?

Bammann: Gunnar Zimmermann, the head of the university archive, told us that there have always been protests at the university and that there is a lot to tell about them. At the same time, we wanted the exhibition to address a topic that moves students. So it was a good fit -
even though we found out in the course of our research that it wasn't just students who were responsible for the protests, but that teaching staff and employees were often also involved.

Nogueira: Due to its reform character and the famous name dispute, protests have been part of the university's history from the very beginning. Its very foundation was also the result of protests that originated from teachers at the former University of Teacher Education. We find it exciting to look at the various protests in the university's 50-year history from different perspectives.

Apart from the name controversy, what other issues have caused controversy?

Bammann: The protests often had social and not necessarily university-related themes, for example when it came to opposition to nuclear power in the 1980s or environmental issues in general, which were often the cause of protests. This is still the case today: Just last year, members of 'End Fossil: Occupy! Germany' occupied a lecture theatre to draw attention to climate protection issues. Sometimes the protest groups from Oldenburg also played an important role outside the city. For example, a group from the university was involved in organising a peace demonstration in Bonn against the deployment of Pershing II missiles and took part with a large number of people.

How did you translate your research findings into an exhibition?

Nogueira: We held many conversations with contemporary witnesses, excerpts of which can be heard at various stations. For example, we spoke to the president of the state parliament, Hanna Naber, and the former member of the state parliament, Wolfgang Wulf, who witnessed protests as students at the university and later went into politics themselves. So they have several perspectives on the topic.

"The university is constantly changing"

 

Bammann: Our public call for objects and stories, which we organised together with the Oldenburg City Museum and the university archive, was met with a pleasing response. By talking to them, we got a good feel for the period in question. We want to pass this on to visitors, for example with historical photos, audio recordings of protest songs that were created at demonstrations and objects that are reminiscent of various protests. The Oldenburg City Museum is making a tent available to us that was brought along by students who took part in the historic multi-day bicycle demonstration in Hanover in 1976 to protest against the expansion freeze that was threatening the fledgling university.

Organising exhibitions is part of your degree course. What did you learn?

Bammann: Exhibition organisation is a realistic insight into the professional world. We had already learnt how to take a critical look at society during our studies. However, we are only now finding out what it is like to realise an exhibition and are constantly coming up against challenges, but our contacts at the city museum are there to help and advise us.

What would you like visitors to the exhibition to take home with them?

Nogueira: The impression that even an institution like the university, which at first glance is perceived as having a fixed structure, is constantly changing - and that these changes can come not only from politics or the university management, but from all status groups who are committed to something.

Bammann: We want to encourage people to think about what protest actually is. In our conversations with contemporary witnesses, we realised that some of them saw their earlier activities as commitment rather than protest. For many, the word immediately conjures up images of blockades, whereas protest is not always against something, but often also in favour of a development.

Interview: Sonja Niemann

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