One Year of Coffee, Theory and Curiosity
21 August, 2026
Author Dr Will Zoppellini
Welcome to this week’s blog. I can hardly believe it, but Coffee & Theory has reached its one-year anniversary. This post reflects on its mission, where it began, what the first year taught me and where it might go next.
So, grab your coffee and join me in reflecting on the journey so far.
In a Coffee Shop Far, Far Away…
For some people, a sense of purpose arrives with a clear path forward. Mine arrived as a question that would not leave me alone, without any certainty about where it might lead.
A little over a year ago, while spending a month in Vlorë, Albania, I fell into a morning routine. I walked along Boulevard Ismail Qemali, the main street through the city, and stopped for an espresso at the same coffee shop. I watched morning life unfolding, people meeting for conversations, coffee pouring, traffic passing and the morning sun beginning to warm the street. Each day the same question sat beside me… What was I going to do next?
Table of Contents
For me, schools and universities remain at the heart of education, with corridors that pulse with curiosity, discovery and the work of helping people learn and grow. Yet the structures shaping them increasingly constrain the time, freedom and space needed to create positive change. In universities, pressure to publish frequently can outweigh slower, collaborative research and careful consideration of what evidence means, its limitations and whether it is ready to be scaled. Final publications may then remain behind paywalls, unread by the very people who could use them most. In schools, growing accountability and attention towards what can be measured is narrowing what is taught and reducing the space for broader learning that is harder to quantify quickly.
Thinking about these constraints also reminded me of everything I did not want to leave behind. I love research. I love finding the right questions, designing studies, creating knowledge, collaborating and discovering where my thinking is incomplete. I also love working with children of all ages and the educators supporting them across different contexts. I did not want to walk away from either world. I wanted another way to belong to both, bringing research and people together to help education evolve for children.
Coffee & Theory grew from that realisation and a desire to share knowledge that could help people understand a child, or see a familiar problem differently. Prioritising accessibility is vital to me, this primarily meant finding and synthesising evidence, so people did not need to spend their evenings searching through papers, deciphering unfamiliar language or paying journal platform subscriptions. The aim was to make research understandable without concealing its complexity or uncertainty. I also believe in a two-way exchange where critical conversations can happen. That means discussing the strengths and shortcomings of evidence, considering different contexts and remaining open to challenge.
Beneath all this research, evidence and teaching practice are children and young people, and everything we do should help them develop the knowledge, motivation, resilience, autonomy and critical thinking to follow their passions and perhaps change the world.
The concept was set. I knew what I wanted to pursue, but had no idea how to make it real. The name arrived months later in Kraków, over pizza with my partner and her sister. Coffee & Theory captured what I wanted. Serious ideas discussed informally, over coffee, where curiosity deepens and conversations travel somewhere unexpected. A dear friend then gave their creativity, vision and encouragement to develop the brand. What looks like one person’s creation was never a one-person story. The idea that began brewing in Albania, grew through conversation and collaboration.
For me, schools and universities remain at the heart of education, with corridors that pulse with curiosity, discovery and the work of helping people learn and grow. Yet the structures shaping them increasingly constrain the time, freedom and space needed to create positive change. In universities, pressure to publish frequently can outweigh slower, collaborative research and careful consideration of what evidence means, its limitations and whether it is ready to be scaled. Final publications may then remain behind paywalls, unread by the very people who could use them most. In schools, growing accountability and attention towards what can be measured is narrowing what is taught and reducing the space for broader learning that is harder to quantify quickly.
Why the Mission Matters More Than Ever
One year in, my mission has not changed. If anything, the past 12 months have made me even more convinced of its importance.
During this first year, I have worked with teachers, sports coaches, parents, community groups, charities, tutors, language teachers, education consultants and researchers across 11 countries. Their roles and contexts differ, but one thing is clear – Understanding how children learn matters enormously.
Our responses to failure, the feedback and praise we give, the opportunities we protect for play and movement, and the meanings we attach to mistakes are just some of the decisions that shape children’s experiences of learning.
Knowledge developed through working directly with children is invaluable. However, when practice relies on experience and anecdotal evidence alone, familiar assumptions can go unchallenged. Research helps us question what we think we know, consider alternatives and make informed decisions. Equally, we cannot hand those decisions to research blindly. Children do not develop in straight lines, and learning is shaped by experience, culture, relationships and context. Research-informed practice should not mean following one study unquestioningly or treating the latest educational idea as a universal solution.
Across every sector, I have found that we continue to confuse the appearance of learning with learning itself. In classrooms, this can look like quiet rooms, neat pages, still children and correct answers. On sports fields, it can look like everyone completing the same drills and staying busy, even when there are few meaningful decisions to make. Children are expected to resemble miniature adults while free exploration and opportunities to take risks are squeezed out.
We measure more, yet create less space for the uncertainty, experimentation and failure through which learning often happens. I increasingly worry that autonomy and critical thinking are becoming slogans we praise rather than purposes we genuinely pursue.
Another conviction of mine that has grown stronger is that context matters. When I exchange ideas with educators and researchers in, for example, the UAE, Poland, the United States, Finland and the UK, their systems differ, yet many of their questions remain strikingly similar. How do we sustain children’s curiosity? How should we respond when they struggle or fail? How much support helps them become autonomous rather than dependent? How do we recognise genuine learning rather than compliance?
Similar questions do not make these contexts interchangeable. We must collaborate, listen and question what ideas mean for the people and places involved. Arriving, lecturing about research and leaving is not enough. Understanding develops through continued dialogue and examining evidence alongside those who use it.
I believed this before Coffee & Theory began, but the first year has firmly solidified it and brought my mission into even sharper focus.
What Made the First Year Worthwhile
The first-year numbers make me incredibly proud. The blog registered almost 4,000 unique visitors and 13,000 page views, with articles reaching readers worldwide in 68 countries.
For something born during an uncertain morning in Albania, that is difficult to comprehend. Every visit represents somebody choosing to think about how children learn, an act of curiosity and willingness to explore rather than dismiss. That appetite for learning is something I love about people.
But the numbers are not what made the year worthwhile.
It was the Instagram message from a parent who recognised their experience in something I wrote. It was the unexpected LinkedIn message from somebody who simply wanted to say that an article helped them think differently.
I keep all those messages because most of Coffee & Theory is written alone, with no reaction when I press publish. They remind me that real people are on the other side. The numbers tell me Coffee & Theory has travelled, but these small messages tell me why it has all mattered.
My Biggest Lessons
The first lesson is that research becomes interesting when people recognise the question beneath it. A teacher may not seek a motivational theory, but they want to understand why an engaged student stopped trying. A parent may not search for metacognition, but they wonder how to help their child think more carefully about learning. A coach may not ask about self-determination theory, but they want to know why young people lost their joy.
Theory does not need to be made artificially exciting. Its value appears when it illuminates experiences people are already trying to understand.
Accessible does not mean simple. Studies can be poorly designed, findings overstated and popular ideas revised. These are reasons to develop research literacy, not to treat every claim as equally credible. People deserve to distinguish one study from a body of evidence, a careful conclusion from an inflated promise, and research-informed practice from practice dressed in scientific language. My aim has never been to remove the theory, but to make it possible to engage with.
The next lesson is less comfortable. Passion and belief do not automatically produce consistency. There were times when I struggled with discipline and showing up. I was learning to manage a website, understand social media, make design decisions and write in a way that made research clear without losing its technical meaning. I learned much of this from scratch while balancing research, delivering workshops, collaborating on projects and generally navigating life. As usual, reality did not follow my perfect schedule.
Much of my work explores how difficulty and failure can become information rather than judgements about who a learner is. Building Coffee & Theory required me to apply that principle to myself. I could examine what made consistency difficult, develop a more sustainable rhythm and begin again.
The final lesson has strengthened and refined one of my central beliefs, which is why I always begin with theory. I want to give people the knowledge they need to understand an idea, transfer its underlying principles into their own context and continue adapting their practice as circumstances change. A set of strategies can feel immediately useful because it can be tried the following day. Yet without understanding what those strategies are intended to achieve or why they might work, they can gradually become meaningless routines and eventually be abandoned.
Theory helps us consider who an approach might support, under what conditions it may be effective and what adaptations a particular context requires. Instead of saying “research says” and presenting another rule to follow, I want to explain the evidence so people can judge what it means for their own work. Evidence can strengthen professional judgement, but it cannot replace it. Coffee & Theory begins with theory so people can make informed decisions while recognising that evidence has limitations, science evolves and uncertainty remains part of the conversation.
Final Thoughts
Coffee & Theory is one year old. It is nowhere near finished, and neither am I. Many ambitions remain, while every conversation and person I work with brings new ideas and motivation. The second year does not require grand promises. It begins by returning to the mission, showing up consistently and asking critical questions alongside the wonderful people working in and around education. The teachers, coaches, parents, tutors, researchers and other educators I have worked with bring curiosity, honesty and openness to these conversations, and I have loved every minute. There have been successes, mistakes, periods of momentum and moments when progress felt harder, but each has been part of building something I believe in. Coffee & Theory remains a journey I want to follow, wherever its questions, conversations and people may take it next.
Until next time, stay curious.
Dr Will Zoppellini
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