Hilbert Lühr Meyer, born on 2 October 1941 in Lauenburg, Pomerania, the fourth of six children; his grandfather and father were teachers; occasionally mistaken for his twin brother, the educational scientist Meinert Meyer from the Department of Education at the University of Hamburg:

• Attended school from 1948 to 1961 in Westerstede near Oldenburg (State of Lower Saxony); took his Abitur at Westerstede Grammar School in 1961 (by the skin of his teeth)
• From the summer term of 1961 to the winter term of 1961/62, studied at Bethel Church University near Bielefeld (qualification: Graecum) and as an auditor at Bielefeld University of Education
• From the summer term of 1962 to the summer term of 1964: studied at the Oldenburg University of Education (Qualification: First examination for primary school teachers, with a final thesis entitled ‘The Relationship between Past, Present and Future in Schleiermacher’s Concept of Education’; supervisors: Werner Loch and Herwig Blankertz)
• 1 August 1964 to 1 April 1967: Appointed as a teacher at Ocholt Primary School, Ammerland district; taught all year groups – with a focus on primary education – favourite subject: general studies (Qualification: Second examination for primary school teachers with a dissertation on “The didactic problem of premature teaching in general studies”; supervisor: Hans-Jochen Gamm; published in abridged form in “Bildung und Erziehung” in 1968)
• 1 February 1967: Appointed as a civil servant in the school service of the State of Lower Saxony; 31 March 1967: Resigned from civil service
• Summer term 1967 to winter term 1968/69: Doctoral studies at the Free University of Berlin (under Herwig Blankertz) with the main subject of Educational Science and minors in Philosophy and History; Berlin was in turmoil due to the student revolt; Studying and campaigning were great fun – and the two could easily be combined; during this time: research assistant at the Institute for 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 Westphalian Wilhelms University of Münster, as my supervisor, Herwig Blankertz, had moved to Münster;
• February 1970: Master of Arts (M.A.) from the School of Arts at the University of Münster in the subjects of Educational Science, Philosophy and History, with a Master’s thesis on ‘The didactic concept of the Paris “École Polytechnique” during the French Revolution’ (Supervisor: Herwig Blankertz; traces of the Master’s thesis can be found in Herwig Blankertz’s book *Bildung im Zeitalter der großen Industrie* [Education in the Age of Large-Scale Industry], Schroedel, Hanover 1969); I completed my Master’s examinations at breakneck speed because I was due to take up a post as a research assistant at the University of Münster, but the Teacher Training College (PH) examination was not accepted as a prerequisite (I did not accept the reasons for this discrimination then, and I still do not accept them today)
• March 1971 to March 1972: Research assistant in the Department of Educational Science at the University of Münster
• February 1972: Awarded a Dr. phil. degree from the School of Arts in the subject of Educational Science (minor subjects: Philosophy and History) with a dissertation on the topic “The Problem of Deduction in Curriculum Research”; the first examiner was Herwig Blankertz, the second examiner Willi Oelmüller; the thesis was published under the generalised title “An Introduction to Curriculum Methodology” (Kösel Verlag, Munich, 1972).[1]
• April 1972 to February 1975: Research assistant (initially BAT II a, then BAT I a) to the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia, working on the scientific monitoring of the ‘Kollegschule’ school pilot scheme (led by Herwig Blankertz; my areas of work: supervising curriculum development teams and evaluation of the pilot scheme; it was here that the “Training Programme for Learning Objective Analysis” was developed, published by Fischer Athenäum as a paperback in 1974)
• February 1975: Appointed to a professorship (initially A 4, later reclassified as C4) in “School Pedagogy” at Faculty 1 of the University of Oldenburg (which at the time was still fighting for its name); Gradual familiarisation with the key areas of ‘General Didactics’ (since 1975), ‘Teaching Methodology’ (since 1982) and ‘School Development’ (since 1992); When I took up this professorship, it was rather unclear to me what was meant by ‘school pedagogy’; the only thing that was clear was that, by sheer coincidence, it was the post that my father, as a civil servant of the State of Lower Saxony, had previously held at the University of Education for Agricultural Teachers in Wilhelmshaven.
• From February 1975 to the summer term of 1985, I was involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of the Oldenburg pilot scheme for single-phase teacher training (ELAB); the pilot project was discontinued following the change of government from the SPD to the CDU, even though it was cost-neutral and had been positively evaluated in several expert reports; to this day, I regard this as a forward-looking model for teacher training in the 21st century – by no means utopian, but one that could be realised with certain modifications.

  As part of my work on the ELAB project, I produced the draft versions of the ‘Guide to Lesson Preparation’ at the centre for pedagogical career practice (Oldenburg 1979) and the “Teaching Methods” (1982), published by the Centre for Pedagogical Professional Practice, were produced in close collaboration with students and teachers; the “Guide” prompted the then Minister for Education, Werner Remmers, to issue a rather unusual decree calling on the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oldenburg to ensure that this text should not serve as a binding basis for teacher training at the University of Oldenburg; the Vice-Chancellor rejected this, citing 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.

Date of retirement:

I am being asked about this more and more often, even though I am not in the mood for it at all. I was appointed professor in 1975 – that is, in the penultimate class of students in which the medieval privileges of emeritus status were still granted. I am therefore able and permitted to work until the age of 68, and I have no complaints, because work – to paraphrase Karl Marx – is a good means of self-fulfilment (provided that self-determination is possible in one’s work). This means that I will probably take emeritus status 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 pilot scheme launched by the federal government, which was subsequently discontinued by the state of Lower Saxony

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

• Since 1994: Member of the Advisory Board of the Laborschule Bielefeld

• Since 1995: Member of the Advisory Board of Osternburg Secondary School

• Since 1998: Member of the Advisory Board of the Cornelsen Foundation “Teaching and Learning” at the Donors’ Association for German Science

• 2002: Member of the ‘Round Table on Education’ organised by the Senator for Schools and Education in Bremen