Sit & Think: How We Actually Learn (After the Walk)

You know the moment. The walk is winding down, the conversation has just hit something good, and then everyone drifts off to the carpark.

This is for that conversation.

Here is a thought I keep coming back to. We spend our childhoods being taught: sat in rows, told what to know, tested on whether we kept it. Then we grow up, and the real learning quietly moves somewhere else. It starts happening in conversations, in disagreements, in the things experience teaches us, and in the moments we change our minds over a drink.

There is even a word for it: andragogy, the art of helping adults learn. The idea is that adults learn best not when they are lectured at, but when their own experience is in the room and they get to think things through alongside other people. Which is more or less what a good walk, and a good pint afterwards, already are.

So this first session turns that idea on itself. We will sit with a deceptively simple question: how do adults actually learn, and when did you last genuinely change your mind about something that mattered?

Here is how it runs. I open with a short talk, about ten minutes, to set the question up, not to settle it. Then the floor is yours. It is an open, facilitated discussion, which is a fancy way of saying I keep things moving and make sure everyone who wants to speak gets the room to. Your experience is the material. Bring it, along with your half-formed hunches and your disagreements. Especially the disagreements, kept warm of course.

No prep, no reading, nothing to know in advance.

📅 When: Saturday 6 June, straight after the walk. We will get started around 3:15 PM, once everyone has a drink in hand.
📍 Where: Orakei Local Bar & Kitchen, 228 Orakei Road, Remuera (where the walk finishes)
🚶 Before this: join the Ōrākei Walk and Talk from 1:00 PM, details on the group page
🎙️ Format: ~10 min talk, then open discussion (about an hour all up)
💵 Cost: $5 cash at the table
💬 Vibe: Relaxed, curious, a little bit nerdy
🌧️ Weather: the Sit and Think is indoors and runs rain or shine. If the walk itself is called off, come straight to the Orakei Local for 3:15 and we will think and talk where it is warm and dry.

A couple of honest notes. It is $5, cash at the table - partly for the prep & facilitation that goes into each session, partly because a small buy-in tends to mean people actually turn up and lean in. And if you would rather just have a quiet pint and listen, you are very welcome at the table anyway. Listening is taking part too.

Spots here are limited to keep the conversation manageable. If they fill up, you can still join us on the day after the walk, first in, first served.

Drop me a message if you have questions, or just come along 🙂