Residential College Hustedt e.V.
What Residential Colleges are
Residential Colleges (HVHS-Heimvolkshochschulen) are Institutions of the Adult Education. They have their roots in scandinavia. As well in Lower Saxony, Germany, they look back on a long tradition and are part of the public education system.
Residential Colleges are locations of learning and encounter, where people get the chance to learn together an from each other.
- Obtain education and knowledge
- Conquer prejudice
- Become aware of the personal interests
- Hear opposite opinions
- Come to an agreement
- Act responsible
This is what is intended to reach by the work of education in Residential Colleges.
And this is the reason why Residential Colleges are inviting to learn , to talk to each other and to exchange and obtain insights and knowledge. Residential Colleges are open to a variety of different societies, as e.g. clerical societies, labor unions, trade, country-people unions. But they still are susceptible to any further interests.
23 Residential Colleges are joint in the Lower Saxonian Union of Residential Colleges. It is attending to the interests of all the colleges.
The plural principle of the Adult Education gives to every partipant the free choice of the college that fits best.
History
The Residential College Jägerei Hustedt was founded in 1948 in the local area "Jägerei" in the village of Hustedt, district Celle.
The work of education commenced under difficult circumstances in the present country house, in the farmhouse and several barracks. Up to that date, the buildings were in use of the British Military.
At the beginning, the idea was to support and to accompany the needed reorganization in democracy and social order by educational work. The central topic should be the political education of employees.
The women and men, who were engaged in the Residential College Jägerei Hustedt -during the setting up and now- were closely connected to the labor unions. They represented the priciples of a social democracy and partially were experienced in the employee education in the Republic of Weimar. From the beginning the longterm courses of political education were an important and successful main point of the work. A close co-operation with the German Labor Union (DGB) and the Educational Union ?Arbeit und Leben" developed.
Courses for Lobor Union officials, works councils and youth representatives had been formulated and carried through. In 1956 the East-West-Seminar was established, designed to support the critical controversy about the different social orders in the east and the west of europe.
With the Lower Saxonian law for the exemption for education coming into effect in the year 1975, a new main point of working originated from it: The education seminars, for which every employee could be released from work for 5 days a year with the continuation of payment. In the meanwhile there are comparable laws in a number of the remaining states.
With the passing of the Lower Saxonian law of adult education, the educational work and the governmental advancement of the Residential College Hustedt was based on the law and as a result it was easier to plan and to calculate.
In the run of its fourty years of history the Residential College Jägerei Hustedt continuosly has been extended and offers ideal conditions for the living and learning under one roof in by now 12 buildings.
The way we work
We are starting from the priciple, every participant is joining us on his own accord and is knowing why he is coming and what he wants to learn.
In some courses the mediation of knowledge is standing in the foreground. For example it is about the question, what a works council can do in the case of dismissals. Generally this will be explained by a introductorily lecture, a discussion or a work sheet. Then, in smaller groups, the participants make a plan about which tools to use for their work. Or they empathise the reality on the basis of games of planning and decision. The results get introduced and proposals for improvement discussed. It is concerned with knowledge and taking action. The more intensive the participants co-operate and report their experiences, the more exactly we can confer proposals for solutions together with them and give advices and support.
Other courses rather are concerned with discussion and hence to recognize a complicated problem in its multiple dimensions. Together the participants discuss their conceptions of the problem and come to know different positions. These courses do not point at taking action but on insight.
The more curious and interested the participants co-operate, the more deeply we can treat the contents.
In the longterm courses (basic and progressive course) we are working with written questions. In each subject the participants have to produce a paper. We want to mediate the procedure and technique of mental labor.
Generally we work in the courses from 08:45 h to 12:30 h and from 15:30 to 18:30 h. During the seminar, the participants live in the Residential College. The educators are occupied as professionals and live in the college too or in the direct surroundings.