New podcast explores the realities of education and growing up in the world today

The launch featured Hemali Dalal (right) in conversation with journalist Faye D’Souza and serial entrepreneur Tejas Jhaveri

There is no shortage of advice on raising children. What is harder to find are answers grounded in experience. That is the space The Next Lesson with Hemali Dalal hopes to occupy.

Launched last week, the podcast explores the realities of education and growing up today: from reading in a digital world and emotional intelligence to future-ready skills, play, leadership, and wellness.

Among the guests in the first season are children's author Lubaina Bandukwala, Yuvaa co-founder Nikhil Taneja, wellness expert Luke Coutinho and Collective Artists Network founder and group CEO Vijay Subramaniam. "The idea isn't to share my learning, but to share the learning of people who are actually living and experiencing these things," shares Dalal.

For the educator, the podcast idea grew out of frustration with advice often passed around without enough knowledge behind it. "Sometimes, the questions are very simple, and we want those answers from people who genuinely know."

What happens to our ability to listen when the world is constantly competing for our attention? And what happens to being human when technology can increasingly imitate us? These questions came sharply into focus during the launch, which featured live conversations with journalist Faye D'Souza and serial entrepreneur, angel investor, and Myntmore founder Tejas Jhaveri.

For D'Souza, learning begins with listening to people. Yet listening has become harder. Phones sit on tables, notifications interrupt conversations, and our minds move between work, messages and the next task. D'Souza's answer is simple: "If the conversation happening inside the room matters, then everything outside the room can wait." Presence, she suggests, is a choice. She recalls developmental paediatrician Dr Samir Dalwai's advice to parents: "How did people do this before phones?"

The problem is not technology itself, D'Souza argues, but allowing it to erode the capacities we already possess: attention, listening, and connection. That extends to the way we consume news. A generation ago, a newspaper might report a tragedy through numbers. Today, suffering arrives on our phones in real time: faces, voices, and grief from almost anywhere in the world. D'Souza describes this as a kind of vicarious trauma.

For someone who spends much of her professional life reporting on injustice, D'Souza remains strikingly hopeful. Parenthood, she says, has made her more invested in the world future generations will inherit. "I didn't sit back and let it happen. I did something."

Jhaveri approaches the changing world from the perspective of AI. His concern is no longer whether AI will become part of our lives, but how we use it without surrendering the things we need to think and feel for ourselves. "AI can democratise access to knowledge and remove much of the friction from everyday life. But convenience comes with a risk: we may outsource the thinking along with the task," he argues.

His answer is to make AI a learning partner rather than an answer machine. Instead of simply asking for a solution, learners can ask AI to explain a concept, test their understanding, identify gaps and challenge their assumptions. Jhaveri recommends telling AI explicitly not to hallucinate, not to agree, and to challenge your thinking.

This distinction matters especially in education. If AI does the cognitive work, a learner may get the answer without developing the ability to arrive at one. At the same time, AI can make learning more responsive. Tools such as Diffit can adapt material to different levels of understanding, allowing learners to approach the same subject at a pace and complexity that works for them.

Its usefulness extends beyond the classroom. Jhaveri points to systems such as Blippr, which can analyse word choice, tone and speaking patterns to identify possible signs of anxiety or vulnerability. The purpose is not for AI to respond in place of a human, but to help us notice what we might otherwise miss.

By the end of the conversation, the issue is not whether humans will win or lose against AI. It is whether technology can make us more capable without making us less human. Can it help a parent spend more meaningful time with a child rather than replace the conversation? Help a learner understand rather than simply complete the assignment? The answer depends less on the technology than on how we choose to use it. Jhaveri's goal is to use AI deliberately without surrendering our thinking. And perhaps that is the real lesson: in a world full of answers, staying curious, thoughtful and deeply human may matter more than ever.