He started looking around for someone doing meaningful work that he could help with his business skills. He went to events. He collected leaflets and CDs. And then one day someone handed him a CD called Love Peace Harmony and told him to put it on when business was going sideways and stress was running the show.

He almost did not bother.

“I tried it many, many times and I realized that it truly did work.” — Richard Rogers

Forty minutes to the office, forty minutes back. He arrived calmer, more open, more present. He went back a year later to find out more. He attended an event. He got involved. He is now the Executive Director of the Love Peace Harmony Foundation, which operates in 40 countries and is working toward two billion households worldwide.

Not a bad journey for a CD he nearly left on the shelf.

The Problem Nobody Is Really Solving

Evin brought something into this conversation that is hard to shake. A teacher recently broke down on a call with the Thinkering team. She had just filed a suicide prevention report. For a fourth grader.

That is what educators are walking into every day right now. Three in four teachers are burned out and thinking about leaving. The average superintendent lasts two years and two months. The mental health crisis in schools is not a conference theme anymore. It is a daily reality sitting in classrooms that were never built to hold it.

Richard’s read on why is worth hearing.

“Today we live in one of the most connected times in history. But so many people feel even more disconnected through this amazing connection the internet was supposed to bring us.” — Richard Rogers

Stress, anxiety, loneliness, communities under economic and environmental pressure all at once. He does not think any one person or organization can fix it. He says that plainly and without apology. What Love Peace Harmony is trying to do is change the frequency, starting with the individual and spreading outward from there.

Three Pillars, One Direction

The foundation’s work runs through three pillars.

The first is nurturing yourself. Meditation, chanting, wellness practices that chip away at the stress that builds up every day and replace it with something closer to calm. The thinking is simple: when people feel better about themselves, they care more about others and the world around them.

The second is supporting others. A global volunteer network across all 40 countries, each group working in their own language and their own time zone. Not everyone speaks English. The foundation built for that from the start.

The third is healing the planet. Three million trees by 2030. Water wells in Africa. And the project most relevant to the Thinkering community: Plastic to Purpose.

Plastic to Purpose

This is where Love Peace Harmony meets the classroom, and it is what Richard and Evin are building toward together.

Students watch plastic waste get transformed in real time through a machine called the Love Peace Harmony Press. Discarded plastic goes in. A keyring comes out. Something real and useful that a minute ago was garbage.

The program has already run in Atlanta and Hawaii. London is next in September.

“To teach the younger generations about the impact of waste plastic will, I feel, change the planet. Because when they understand what they need to do to make a change, these are the generations that will be able to make it.” — Richard Rogers

The lesson is not just about plastic. It is about the distance between something thrown away and something with purpose being smaller than most people think. That lands differently when you are holding the proof of it in your hand.

Part two of this conversation gets into the project more deeply and what the collaboration with Thinkering looks like going forward.

Step One, Right Now

Evin asked the practical question. Teachers are not eating lunch. There are five fires to scramble and put out every afternoon. Time is gone before the day starts. How does someone actually bring this into their life?

Richard keeps it simple. Start with the song. Everything on lovepeaceharmony.org is free. Download it. Listen to it on the drive in. See what happens.

“The first step is always about healing yourself. Connect with Love Peace Harmony, come to our events, join us on social media. We created that framework to not only find the people but to hold them.” — Richard Rogers

Richard went from a single CD to running a global foundation. He is not selling a shortcut. He is describing a practice that started in a car on a forty-minute commute and built from there. The song is free. The first step is small. That is the point.

Find Love Peace Harmony at lovepeaceharmony.org. Everything is free to access. Part two of this conversation is coming soon. For Thinkering Collective fellowship information visit thinkeringcollective.org or reach us at hello@thinkeringcollective.org

By: Garrett Wilhelm - Senior Advisor @ Thinkering Collective

At Thinkering Collective, our exploration into the future of learning has taken us on a journey that began with complexity and has gradually unfolded into profound simplicity. In the beginning, we found ourselves deep in the weeds of teacher burnout, systemic deficit models, and the ever-growing needs of educators navigating a rapidly changing landscape. These are not insignificant challenges. They are the frontlines of modern education, the daily battles that shape the classroom experience.

But as we built a framework for understanding what humanized education could look like, a shift occurred. The complexity didn’t disappear, but it began to organize itself around something deeper. Something more essential. The further we traveled into the future of education, the clearer it became: the simpler the questions, the more powerful the answers.

Technology is evolving fast. It’s redefining what we can automate, replicate, and scale. But at the same time, it’s demanding that we confront what it means to be human. In this paradox, we found clarity. To build systems that support the future learner, we don’t need to ask more complicated questions. We need to ask more honest ones.

What is work?

What does it mean to be smart?

What is our purpose?

These questions have no single answer, but they shape every interaction, every curriculum decision, every educational tool we create. In a world of AI, automation, and digital acceleration, these human-centered inquiries are our anchor. They help us reverse-engineer learning environments from a place of purpose, not productivity.

The future learner isn’t defined by their ability to memorize or conform. They are defined by their ability to reflect, adapt, and co-create meaning. And the educators who guide them are not just transmitters of knowledge, but facilitators of becoming.

At Thinkering Collective, we believe that reimagining education doesn’t require us to reinvent humanity. It requires us to remember it. And in that remembering, we find the courage to ask again:

What really matters?

Sometimes, the future is found not in the answers, but in the simplicity of the questions we dare to ask.

The school year may be over, but its echoes still linger. In the quiet hallways, empty classrooms, and well-worn lesson plans, we’re left not just with memories, but with a question…

What really mattered this year?

It wasn’t the tech upgrades. It wasn’t the test scores. It was the people.

The relationships built. The after-class conversations. The moments when a student felt seen, or an educator felt supported.

In a world increasingly obsessed with tools and trends, we’re reminded: community is the most valuable asset we have. And in education, it’s the only currency that truly compounds.

In an age where feeds and algorithms connect everything and everyone, the human thread often feels frayed. But for educators, students, families, and changemakers, community isn’t a luxury; it’s the lifeblood. It’s the currency we trade in: trust, belonging, and belief in one another.

Why Community Is the Most Valuable Asset

When we think of assets, we often default to things we can count: funding, devices, certifications. But here’s the thing: none of those matter if people don’t feel connected.

A student doesn’t engage because they have a laptop; they engage because someone believes in them.

A teacher doesn’t stay because the school has smartboards; they stay because they have people who see and support them.

In an era where AI is rewriting content faster than students can read it, and where decisions are shaped by dashboards, the one thing technology can’t automate is relationship.

Community keeps us grounded in purpose. It’s what helps students feel safe enough to try, educators feel empowered enough to innovate, and families feel confident entrusting schools with their children.

We need to stop treating community as an afterthought and start recognizing it as our most strategic investment.

How to Build the Community You Need

If you’re an education stakeholder, teacher, administrator, student, parent, nonprofit partner, or policymaker, community doesn’t just happen. It’s built. It’s intentional.

Here are a few ways to start:

Lead with Listening

The best way to build trust is to make people feel heard. Not town halls filled with talking points, but walking the halls. Checking in. Asking questions with no agenda and creating space where voices, especially those often overlooked, can be heard. You’ll be amazed by the insights you gain and how they can positively shape your own practices.

Invest in Collaboration, Not Competition

Teachers shouldn’t be isolated. Students shouldn’t be siloed by test scores. Schools shouldn’t be racing for the same limited grants. Collaboration builds networks of shared learning and mutual support. Pair classrooms across grades. Launch peer mentorships. Create cross-disciplinary projects that blend art, science, storytelling, and lived experience.

Celebrate Progress Over Perfection

We don’t build community by handing out awards at the end of the year. We build it by noticing small wins, daily. Celebrate the student who encouraged a peer. The teacher who adapted mid-lesson. The principal who stayed late to meet with a parent.
These are the moments that matter. These are the bonds that grow.

Prioritize Wellness and Well-Being

Burnout is not a badge of honor (friendly reminder, over 50% of teachers report feeling burned out during the school year). Community care means modeling boundaries, rest, and meaningful moments. Build connections, not just for students, but for adults too. Small acts like morning check-ins, passion projects, and intentional humanizing efforts all count. They remind us that we are human beings, not human doings, and that taking care of ourselves is something to be proud of.

Community Is the Future of Innovation

At Thinkering, we talk a lot about curiosity, learning, action, and impact. But what ties all of that together is the people who make it possible.

Curiosity flourishes when it’s shared. Learning deepens when it’s done together.
Action scales when more hands join in. And impact ripples only through the people who carry it forward.

As we recharge this summer, we’re also looking ahead to the next school year. The question isn’t just “What will we teach?” but “Who will we build with?”

Stop thinking of community as a nice-to-have and begin recognizing it as the foundation for everything else. When community is the currency, we all become richer.

That’s the kind of wealth education truly deserves.

Every year, education rallies around a new focus until the next trend arrives.

If history repeats itself, it won’t be with something new, it’ll be a familiar concept, repackaged with a fresh label and a year’s worth of momentum. We've seen it with SEL (Social-emotional learning). With the Science of Reading. With Civic Engagement. With AI. These buzzwords dominate Professional Development sessions and education headlines for a season, until they’re replaced by the next trend, leaving behind scattered efforts and students still looking for purpose and connection.

But what if 2026 is the year we stop chasing trends and start investing in what actually works?

The Word We’re All Dancing Around

There’s one approach that brings everything together: what schools say they’re striving for, what families want to nurture in their kids, and what the future demands from our next generation of leaders.

It’s not a trendy new curriculum or a checklist of soft skills. It’s a mindset. A way of thinking. A lived experience that naturally builds communication, creative problem-solving, research, financial literacy, inquiry, teamwork, confidence, and the ability to turn ideas into action.

The word is entrepreneurship.

I’ve been an entrepreneur for nearly 20 years. I’ve launched companies, worked through setbacks and plenty of failures, built from scratch, and watched ideas grow into impact. But if you had asked me about this path when I was in school? I wouldn’t have even understood the word.

Entrepreneurship wasn’t talked about in K–12. And when it was brought up in passing after university, it was often dismissed, as if wanting to build something of your own meant you didn’t want a “real job.”

Now, to see this term finally get the recognition it deserves in education, it’s personal. And it’s promising.

Because entrepreneurship is interdisciplinary by nature. It transforms traditional subjects into living, breathing tools:

Math becomes budgeting, modeling, and data analysis.

Language arts becomes persuasive pitching, storytelling, and branding.

Science turns into prototyping, testing, and iterative design.

Social studies becomes an exploration of justice, equity, community, and civic action.

SEL? It’s embedded in the entire experience, collaborating with others, learning from failure, presenting to real audiences, and believing in your own potential.

This isn’t theoretical. We’ve seen it in action. We’ve seen it change how students view themselves and the world around them. We've seen it ignite confidence, purpose, and possibility.

So let’s stop dancing around the word. Let’s call it what it is. Entrepreneurship is the future of education. And it’s about time.

A Glimpse Into What’s Possible

This spring, Belouga collaborated with the Toronto District School Board and the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University to launch a pilot experience: the TRSM Innovation Invitational.

Over six weeks, Grade 5–8 students from six schools came together to tackle real-world challenges using innovation and a problem-solving mindset. One of the biggest challenges youth face today is the fear of failure (more on that in an upcoming article), but it was amazing to see these students take risks, embrace uncertainty, and gain confidence in their abilities and their journey. Each week, layered reflection, collaboration, and ideation culminated in a final pitch event judged by local leaders and entrepreneurs.

Every project was rooted in purpose. Every solution came from the student voice. And every outcome showed what happens when we put tools in students’ hands and trust them to lead.

Watch the highlight video to see it in action.

Why This Matters Right Now

The numbers tell a story schools can’t ignore.

In the past five years, districts across North America have invested over $2 billion in SEL initiatives. Yet today, more students than ever feel disconnected, anxious, and unprepared for life beyond the classroom. Meanwhile, families are increasingly seeking out non-traditional outlets and resources to support their children’s education and growth.

The disconnect? Schools are teaching social-emotional skills, but often without meaningful opportunities for students to apply them, not to mention the quick flip to a new shiny focus area every year that sidelines ongoing progress.

The model piloted in Toronto flips this approach. Instead of isolated lessons, students tackle real-world problems together. They practice agency, empathy, and impact daily. That’s how schools prepare future-ready learners and keep families engaged.

2026 Doesn’t Need Another Trend

It needs a movement, centered on entrepreneurship, that gives students a lasting voice and real-world opportunities. A mindset and method that go beyond subjects or grade levels to build core skills for life: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and resilience.

If we want students to thrive in the future, we must shift from chasing the next big thing to intentionally building learning experiences that empower their voice, spark their curiosity, and prepare them for a lifetime of possibilities.

We can start by embedding entrepreneurial thinking into classrooms through authentic projects, real-world mentorship, and the space for students to take risks, solve problems, and lead with purpose.

Stop searching for the next buzzword, and start creating the future our kids deserve.