Feeling 'philosophical' this week, I have been ruminating on the subject of optimists and pessimists.
Someone described an optimist as 'a person looking for lodgings, with a violin under one arm and a trombone under the other'.
James Cabell put it better when he said
"The optimists proclaim that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimists fear that this is true."
Schopenhauer observed that so much of human unhappiness was due to our unrealistic expectations.
As Alexander Pope said:
"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he will never be disappointed".
I have heard people say:
 "I was really looking forward to that party, but it was such a let-down.  The next day I was dragged, unwillingly, by a friend to a party and it was great!"
I think, to a greater or lesser degree, we are all a bit optimistic and a bit pessimistic.  'Fear cannot exist without hope, nor hope without fear'.
There is one meaningful joke on this issue that is worth repeating:


A young man, travelling on foot in a rural area, sees a farmer in a field.  He asks the farmer where he is and the farmer replies "Smallovia".
"Do you have a government ?" the traveller asks.
"Yes, we have a two party system - the Optimists and the Pessimists," the farmer says.
"What are their policies?"
"Well, the Optimists believe that in ten years' time we're all going to be eating shit."
"Then what do the Pessimists believe?"
"They believe that there's not going to be enough to go round."

This is my 52nd post on my blog and therefore a first birthday.
My readers will have gathered by now that everything that I have written has been the result of many years experience as a teacher, and by studying the ideas and insights of some of the most perceptive and thought-provoking minds in the fields of education and psychology.  People like Homer Lane, A.S.Neill, Bertrand Russell, Paul Goodman, Elena Belotti, John Holt, Bruno Bettelheim, John Gatto - all worth reading and pondering on.
I am aware that very few people follow my blog.  Conventionally, a blog is an up-to-date diary, whereas mine is merely a platform for my views.  From feedback I know that most of my readers prefer an anecdote to a rant about school being the enemy of education.  I can't promise that the next year will be any different.  I welcome comments.
Thank you for reading my blog - whoever you are!

Considering that public speaking heads the list of all phobias, the reasons people register for a course is usually out of necessity, i.e. they have been promoted at work and now have to chair meetings and deliver speeches, or they might just wish to improve their self-confidence in public, which is, after all, the purpose of such courses.
One student at a night school, in Sydney, revealed in the first lesson of a 6 week course that he was to be married in two months' time, and he didn't want to disappoint his bride and the wedding guests by delivering a poor groom's speech.  He also said that he felt obliged to deliver a funny speech despite the fact that he wasn't a funny man.  My advice to him, as usual, was to forget being funny and to speak from the heart.  He spent every lesson perfecting his speech.
In the last lesson he delivered the speech he intended to give two weeks later.  His opening remark was quite funny:
"I looked up books of quotations on marriage, but I couldn't find any that were in favour of it!"
The rest of his speech was deeply touching and earned him a standing ovation from the class.
I said to him after the class:
"You really must tell your bride about doing this course."
He insisted that she must 'never know', to which I said:
"I can't think of a more thoughtful compliment to pay a bride than her nervous husband-to-be attending a public speaking course, to give him the confidence not to disappoint her at the reception."
He shook his head, but I urged him to tell her, if not on their honeymoon, then in the near future.

"The only questions asked in school should be by the pupils", some wise person said.
Testing and exams reveal almost nothing about intelligence, merely memory.
We had so much testing at one school I taught at, that a teacher remarked, in a staff meeting:
"Do you pull up a flower every week to see how it's growing?"
Of course, his comment was ignored by management, all of whom were scrupulously  following the government's instructions on window-dressing.
Schools should be places where an insatiable curiosity about everything in life is the natural ethos.
Instead, our schools are busy ramming home the cerebral syllabuses of a very narrow range of subjects.  It is anti-educational.
"How is it that American education turns a torrent into a trickle?" John Holt asked decades ago.
Schools are becoming more and more anti-educational all the time.
Most people refuse or are too lazy to think for themselves.  'Received wisdom' is often exposed as a sham in many cases.  The nonsense so many believe is the only way covers a range of issues, education being one of them.  I laugh out loud when I hear someone say that British education is the finest in the world.  Wrong on so many levels.
Intelligent employers tend to place CVs, qualifications etc. further down the scale than careful questioning in an interview and reading the prospective employee's body language.
One last quotation, linked very much to the opening quotation:
"To give children answers to questions that they have not asked, is to make profound cynics of them."

This week I would like to pay tribute to one of the finest teachers and human beings it has been my good fortune to know.
Harold Glasby was one of my history teachers at my secondary school in Sydney in the 1960s.  He was also the deputy head of the school.
He was, as history teachers should be - very knowledgeable and a passionate storyteller.  His rendition of the French National Assembly after the revolution is still vivid in my memory.
In my last year, an incident occurred which said a lot about him.  A teacher had accused and punished a boy in our year, for writing insults about the teacher on a classroom board, without a shred of evidence that the boy was guilty.  This particular teacher was well known for having his favourites and his pet hates. 
So we, as a year (150 or so boys), decided one breaktime to go on strike and refuse to attend lessons until the teacher in question apologised to the boy and to us as a body of students.  At the end of break we all sat on the grassy embankment at the East side of the school.
It didn't take long for windows to be flung open and then hundreds of pupils, yelling, cheering, whistling their approval while their class teachers tried in vain to continue the lesson.
After ten minutes or so, Harold Glasby suddenly appeared from nowhere, brandishing two canes in his hands as he shouted:
"Get to class NOW!"
We didn't actually fear Harold Glasby, but such was our respect and liking for him, we rose as one and made our way to our classrooms.
Near the end of the lesson, Harold Glasby arrived and wanted to know why we had gone on strike.  We told him our grievance and the very next day, after thoroughly examining the evidence, the teacher our grievance was against apologised to the boy he had wrongfully accused and punished.  He then apologised to us as a year.  So good for Harry!
His speech to our farewell dinner was a masterpiece of hilarity and wisdom, earning him a standing ovation from us.
I had cause to speak to him a few years later, when he was head of The Conscientious Objectors' Committee against the Vietnam War and conscription.  A brave stance to take for a civil servant, but then he was a State civil servant, not a Federal one, which would have put him at odds with the Australian Government's shameful policy on the war, making it impossible for him to be a teacher.
I count myself very lucky to have known such a man.