Adaptability. Creativity. Self-mastery.

The future demands these qualities. Emotional purpose, regulation, resilience, inner mastery.

None of this is new. Ancient Indian wisdom spoke of it long ago. The Vedas taught us Sankalp, intention.

Yoga taught us to master the senses. Our stories taught us dharma, doing what is right even when it is hard. Meditation, reflection, and value-based living were never trends. They were the foundation of true education.

Today, in a world of AI and uncertainty, the rest of the world is catching up to what India always knew. The most important technology is still a well-regulated human being.

We adapted tools across time. From quills to pens, from typewriters to copilots. Yet education has not kept pace. Schools still teach memory as if it matters most. But memory was replaced by Google. Search itself is now replaced by AI.

Why are we adapting so slowly? Preschools still show the mailman as a community helper while drones deliver our parcels. Children will grow into worlds of AI trainers, climate entrepreneurs, empathy engineers, and ethics consultants. Are we preparing them for that?

I was among the first to bring activity-based learning to India with Kangaroo Kids and Billabong High. My Australian training taught me to replace rote repetition with exploration, play, and experience. For years, that was my mission.

But after 35 years in India, and after immersing in neuroscience, I have come full circle.

Everything I went abroad to learn was already here in India. The power of intention. The wisdom of breath. The silence that heals. The balance that grounds us. It was always in our stories, scripture, and soil.

So, I ask schools today: Are you satisfied with activity-based or project-based learning as the goal? Or have you built places where curiosity thrives, where wonder lives, where children wake up excited to learn, not just perform?

The warning signs are here. This year, 38 percent of IIT graduates did not get jobs. Not a small college, but IIT. The “safe path” is no longer safe. That number is not a statistic. It is a wake-up call.

The world does not need test-takers. The world needs humans who are whole, mindful, curious, and purpose-led.

That is why I stepped away from Kangaroo Kids and Billabong High. Not because they failed, but because they succeeded for a world that no longer exists. I chose to reinvent learning through microschools. If you want to see what a microschool looks like, visit Dreamtime Learning Hub in Kalyani Nagar, Pune.

I also built a live online school where core learning takes half the time. Through our “Powered by Dreamtime” model, schools across India can license our Conscious Curriculum and plug into a higher learning engine.

Because education cannot stop at IQ. It must raise human consciousness.

At Dreamtime, children learn how their amygdala triggers fear, how to regulate anxiety, how to rewire habits, how to choose values. They learn how to program their own minds before an algorithm does it for them. They see how thoughts shape behavior, how behavior shapes motivation, and how motivation drives choice.

And yes, they still ace exams. Teaching for a test is easy. But raising children who are excited to learn for life—that is the real goal.

This is why we chose our only investor, Nikhil Kamath. Not for capital, but for alignment. He invests in what the future needs, not what the past built.

If this note provokes you, good. If it excites you, even better.

— Lina Ashar