Hilbert Lühr Meyer, born on 2 October 1941 in Lauenburg/ Pomerania as the fourth of 6 children; grandfather and father teacher; occasionally mistaken twin brother of the educational scientist Meinert Meyer from the Department of Educational Science at the University of Hamburg:

• Attended school from 1948 to 1961 in Westerstede near Oldenburg (state of Lower Saxony); graduated from Westerstede grammar school in 1961 (by the skin of his teeth).
• Summer semester 1961 to winter semester 1961/62 Studies at the Bethel Church University near Bielefeld (degree: Graecum) and as a guest student at the Bielefeld University of Education
• Summer semester 1962 to summer semester 1964 Studies at the Oldenburg University of Education (degree: first examination for teachers at primary schools with a thesis entitled "The relationship between past, present and future in Schleiermacher's concept of education"; supervisors: Werner Loch and Herwig Blankertz)
• 1.8.1964 to 1.4.1967 Teacher employed at the Ocholt primary school in the Ammerland district; teaching in all year groups - focus on primary school - favourite subject: subject teaching (degree: second examination for primary school teachers with a thesis on "The didactic problem of early learning in subject teaching"; supervisor: Hans-Jochen Gamm; abridged version published in "Bildung und Erziehung" 1968)
• 1.2.1967: Appointment as a civil servant in the school service of Lower Saxony; 31.3.67 dismissal from civil servant status
• Summer semester 1967 to winter semester 1968/69: Doctoral studies at the Free University of Berlin (with Herwig Blankertz) with Educational Science as main subject and Philosophy and History as minor subjects; the student revolts in Berlin were the reason for the uproar; studying and agitating were fun - and the two could very well be combined; during this time: Research assistant at the Institute of Philosophy and Business Education at the Free University of Berlin (together with Frank Achtenhagen and Adolf Kell)
• From the summer semester of 1969, I continued my doctoral studies at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster because my dissertation supervisor Herwig Blankertz moved to Münster;
• February 1970 Magister Artium (M.A.) from the School of Philosophy at the University of Münster in the subjects of Education, Philosophy and History with a master's thesis on "The didactic conception of the Paris "Ecole Polytechnique" during the French Revolution" (supervisor: Herwig Blankertz; traces of the master's thesis can be found in Herwig Blankertz' book "Bildung im Zeitalter der großen Industrie", Schroedel Hannover 1969); the master's examination was completed at a rapid pace because I was to be given the position of a research assistant at the University of Münster, but the PH examination was not accepted as a prerequisite (I did not accept the reasons for this discrimination then and still do not)
• March 1971 to March 1972: Research assistant at the Department of Educational Science at the University of Münster
• February 1972: Doctorate (Dr. phil.) at the School of Philosophy in the subject of Educational Science (subsidiary subjects Philosophy and History) with a dissertation on "The Deduction Problem in Curriculum Research", first reviewer was Herwig Blankertz, second reviewer Willi Oelmüller; the work was published under the generalised title "Einführung in die Curriculummethodologie" (Kösel Verlag Munich 1972)[1].
• April 1972 to February 1975: Scientific employee (initially BAT II a, then BAT I a) of the North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs for collaboration in the scientific monitoring of the school experiment Kollegschule (Head: Herwig Blankertz; my fields of work: Supervision of curriculum development teams and evaluation of the pilot scheme; this is where the "Training programme for learning objective analysis", Fischer Athenäum Taschenbuch 1974, was developed).
• February 1975: Acceptance of a professorship (initially A 4, later converted to C4) "School Pedagogy" at Faculty 1 of the University of Oldenburg (which at that time still had to fight for its name); gradual familiarisation with the focal points "General Didactics" (since 1975), "Teaching Methodology" (since 1982) and "School Development" (since 1992); What was meant by "school education" was rather unclear to me when I took on this professorship; the only thing that was clear was that, by sheer coincidence, it was the position that my father had previously held as a civil servant of the state of Lower Saxony at the College of Education for Agricultural Teachers in Wilhelmshaven.
• February 1975 to summer semester 1985 Collaboration in the development, implementation and evaluation of the Oldenburg model experiment for single-phase teacher training (ELAB); the model experiment was cancelled after the change of government from the SPD to the CDU, although it was cost-neutral and positively evaluated in several expert reports; to this day, I consider this to be a forward-looking model for teacher training in the 21st century that is by no means utopian, but can be implemented with certain modifications.

  As part of my ELAB work, the preliminary versions of the "Leitfaden zur Unterrichtsvorbereitung" (Oldenburg 1979) and the "Unterrichtsmethoden" (1982), published by the Centre for Educational Academic Appointments, were developed in close cooperation with students and teachers; the "Guidelines" prompted the then Minister of Education, Werner Remmers, to issue a quite unusual decree to the Rector of the University of Oldenburg requesting that he ensure that this text did not serve as a binding basis for the teacher training programme at the University of Oldenburg; the Rector rejected this with reference to the freedom of research and teaching.
• Summer semester 1989 to winter semester 1990/91: Dean of Faculty 1 at Carl von Ossietzky University; summer semester 1990 cooperation agreement between Faculty 1 and the "Clara Zetkin" University of Education in Leipzig, which was "wound up" a few months later by the new Saxon state government.

Retirement date:

I am asked about this more and more often, although I don't feel like it. I was appointed professor in 1975, the penultimate year in which the medieval privileges of emeritus status were still granted. So I can and may work until the age of 68 and I'm not complaining, because work - to paraphrase Karl Marx - is a good means of self-realisation (as long as self-determination is possible at work.) This means that I will probably retire in 2008.

Advisory boards etc.:

• 1977 to 1980: member of the board of trustees of the Regional Pedagogical Centre (RPZ) in Aurich/East Frisia - a federal pilot project that was then discontinued by the state of Lower Saxony

• 1984 to 1994: Member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of Mathematics Education at Bielefeld University

• since 1994: Member of the advisory board of the Bielefeld Laboratory School

• since 1995: Member of the advisory board of the Hauptschule Osternburg

• since 1998: Member of the advisory board of the Cornelsen Foundation "Teaching and Learning" at the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft

• 2002: Member of the "Education Round Table" of the Senator for Schools and Education in Bremen