Patrick's+Introduction+to+Learning+Unplugged

Patrick Hadfield works as a consultant in organisation change management and learning and development.
 * About Patrick**


 * Why Patrick comes to Learning Unplugged**

I’ve been going to the Learning Unplugged meetup for several months; I don’t make every week, but I am there fairly often. The main thing I get out of the meetup is the opportunity to meet like-minded people for challenging conversation - a real positive.

I sometimes feel a bit of a fraud being there: most of the people there have more experience in education than I do, and more formal understanding of pedagogical theories and ideas. My interest in learning – aside from a passion of learning itself – stems from my experience working in learning and development and organisation development in a corporate environment - what used to be known as “training” – and fourteen months spent working on a change programme developing a new school curriculum in Scotland. I approach the weekly, informal discussions from a different perspective to others; but then so do they – one of the great things is that everyone comes from a different place and is willing to explore and challenge others’ views.

Sometimes we have open, wide-ranging discussions; sometimes a fixed topic or subject – at least for a while (before we stroll off topic…). There are occasional speakers, too, usually organised by David Jennings – despite being a self-organising group, it still takes some organising, and David and Lucy Johnson seem to do most of that.

The energy of this group stems from our different interests – enough commonality to want to hear what the others have to say, enough difference to generate real debate. It is also a very open group – anyone can turn up and take part. And, apparently, we are a friendly, welcoming bunch! One of the rewarding things is how newcomers to the group always seem to react in a very positive fashion.