It’s one of the real benefits of keeping a Learning Log that you can read what other people think about your opinions.

And so it was tonight when I came across a comment on Rob Hill’s blog about a post I’d written on Sunday about Schooling for the Future where Rob suggested that I was being unusually pessimistic about the current situation in Scottish education by describing  it as conforming to the Bureaucratic Model.

I do like to think of myself as being an optimist  – that is I always have a positive outlook on the future – in fact it can sometimes be a weakness. But does being an optimist mean that I can’t describe what I see in the present in realistic terms – even if that description appears to have a negative connotation?

I am very optimistic about the future of Scottish education – but that is not to suggest that change is going to be easy or that we will move to a more enlightened model of education in a seamless manner. However, I believe that without an understanding and appreciation of the true nature of the present that the likelihood of impacting upon the future is greatly reduced. Now is that me being pessimistic or optimistic?  Answers on a postcard