A TEMPLATE FOR WHAT WE’RE EXPLORING

Learning we’re loving

Ideas, resources, and prompts that are shaping how we think about learning right now.

This is a sample layout for sharing the tools, stories, and inspiration we’d like to put in front of our community.

Books

Situated

Find the People and Places That Bring Out Your Best by Angela Duckworth

Ten years after Grit, Angela Duckworth goes looking at everything around the person doing the trying.

The hook: If you’ve ever watched a capable person struggle in the wrong environment, this book explains why.

Why I’m loving it: Grit was everywhere in schools for a while there. Posters, assemblies, whole professional learning days built around it. So I was curious to see Duckworth come back a decade later and say, more or less, that grit is necessary but it isn’t always enough.

Situated is about everything around you when you’re trying to do something hard: the stuff within arm’s reach, the people you work alongside, even your postcode. Her case is that you’re better off improving your situation first rather than gritting your teeth and making the best of it. She uses people like Michael Phelps, Taylor Swift and Jerry Seinfeld to show how high performers set up their surroundings so the right thing is the easy thing.

So much of what we do at The Learning Warehouse is about the conditions around the learning, rather than the learning itself. Who’s in the room, when it happens, whether there’s any space back at work to try something new. Duckworth gives that a stronger research base than I’ve had before, and she’s very readable while she does it.

Best for: Leaders working out how to set their staff up for a big year.

Time investment: Around 350 pages. The audiobook runs about eight and a half hours, read by Duckworth herself.

One thing I’m taking away: Good intentions do a lot better in good conditions.

Where to find it: Your local bookshop or library, or the audiobook if you’ve got a few long drives coming up: angeladuckworth.com/situated

Recommended by: Dave Faulkner

Books

Far Horizons

A Journey from War to Peace by Aaron Tait

Aaron Tait went to war at 17, and this is what he did with the years that followed.

The hook: It starts as a war story and ends up somewhere much bigger. One of the best books I’ve read in years.

Why I’m loving it: I should say up front that I’m biased. Aaron and I co-founded Education Changemakers together, so I know him well. In fact, the first time I met him was on a stage where he was sharing parts of the story in this book.

Aaron was 17 when he deployed to the Persian Gulf, hours after September 11. From there, the book follows him through the war and the disillusionment that came after it, then on to East Africa, where he fell in love and slowly worked out what he wanted his life to be about. Someone once called it “Eat, Pray, Love with guns.” I laughed, and it’s not wrong, but there’s a lot more going on.

Some of it is wild. Some of it is uncomfortable to read, and I think it’s meant to be. The part I keep thinking about is the question underneath the whole thing: what makes a life meaningful, and what are you willing to do to have one? It’s the question that got me into this work in the first place, and it still drives a lot of what we do at The Learning Warehouse.

Fair warning, you might finish it and start looking a bit harder at how you spend your weeks.

Best for: Anyone who’s caught themselves asking “is this it?” about their work or their life.

Time investment: A weekend. Possibly one long Saturday if you can’t put it down.

One thing I’m taking away: Purpose gets built slowly, mostly by doing hard things in uncomfortable places.

Where to find it: Your local bookshop or library should have it. Aaron’s website has more on him and his work: aaronjtait.com

Recommended by: Dave Faulkner

Films

The AI Doc

Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (2026)

A filmmaker about to become a dad sets out to work out what AI means for the world his kid will grow up in.

The hook: Equal parts hopeful and unsettling, and honest about which bits are which.

Why I’m loving it: I watched this on a Qantas flight, which felt slightly ironic given how much of the film is about technology deciding things for us. I didn’t sleep through any of it.

Daniel Roher, who made Navalny, is about to become a father and starts asking what kind of world his child is arriving into. So he builds a studio in his house and invites in the people building AI and the people worried about it, and just keeps asking questions until he understands. Some of those conversations are hopeful. A few left me staring at the back of seat 12A in front of me for a while.

What I liked most is that he doesn’t pretend to be an expert. He’s confused in the same way most of us are, and the film lets you be confused alongside him. The animation and stop motion help too. Big ideas get drawn out in ways you can actually follow.

I came away with a new word, apocaloptimist, and a bit more patience for my own mixed feelings. It’s given me permission to be worried and hopeful at the same time.

Best for: Anyone who’s been meaning to get their head around AI and hasn’t known where to start.

Time investment: About an hour and three quarters. One movie on a flight, with time left for making the most of the inflight Wi-Fi for some work emails.

One thing I’m taking away: The people building AI are as unsure as the rest of us, which makes everyone’s questions worth asking.

Where to find it: Check the streaming services, or keep an eye out on your next long-haul flight: humanetech.com/landing/the-ai-doc

Recommended by: Maddie Scott-Jones