The World We Want

Opening Frame

• Say something like: “Today we are going to practice imagining the world we want. This does not mean pretending everything is fine. It means asking what repair, safety, healing, and courage could look like if people, communities, and systems changed.”
• Add: “Some people imagine the future with hope. Some imagine it with fear. Some feel both. All of those responses are valid.”
• Connect to the Courage Museum: “The Courage Museum asks whether violence is inevitable and what a world without violence could look like. Today, we will use imagination as a way to think about change.”
• This connects well to the museum’s broader framing question: “What would a world without violence look like?”

Private Write: A Message from the Future

• Invite students to open their notebooks and title the entry: “A Message from the Future”
• Ask students to imagine themselves far into the future, looking back on the years that have passed.
• Invite them to consider:

• What is the world like now?
• What has changed since you were a teenager?
• How have you changed as a person?
• What became possible that once felt impossible?
• What did people have to repair?
• What did people have to stop accepting as normal?
• Then give the source prompt: “Looking back, it’s hard to believe…”
  • Students may write, draw, map, list, or sketch images

Partner Share

• Invite students to share only what they feel comfortable sharing.
• Partner prompts:

• What changed in the future you imagined?
• What stayed with you as you wrote or drew?
• Did your future feel hopeful, uncertain, dystopian, utopian, or something else?
• What does your future suggest people cared about?
• Then invite a few whole-group reflections:
  • What did we notice across our imagined futures?
  • What has to be true in order for these futures to exist? What has to change? What needs to remain the same?
  • Were the visions more hopeful, more troubling, or mixed? Why might that be?

Create an Artifact from the Future

• Invite students to create an artifact on the future they imagined
• Students can work individually, in pairs, or in small groups.
• Formats may include:

• letter from the future
• poem
• visual poster
• audio message
• future news headline
• speech from a future young person
  

Closing Reflection

• Students complete one of the following:
  • One future I want to help create is…
  • One thing that would need to change is…
  • One kind of courage this future requires is…
  • One role young people could play is…
  • One role I could play, even in a small way, is…

Educator Support

Facilitation Tips

• Do not force optimism. Some students may feel that imagining a better future is unrealistic or naive. Treat skepticism as a legitimate starting point.
• You might say: “Skepticism can be a form of care. It can mean you are paying attention to what has not worked. The question is not whether change is easy. The question is what conditions would make change more possible.”
• Keep the activity grounded in both imagination and systems. Without systems, the activity may become too individualistic. Without imagination, it may become only a critique of what is wrong.

Differentiation

• For students who prefer greater structure, offer sentence starters:
  • Looking back, it’s hard to believe…
  • People used to think…
  • What changed was…
  • Young people helped by…
  • Schools became places where…
  • Safety meant…
  • Courage looked like…
• For visual learners, invite a Before / After / How map:

• Before: What was wrong?
• After: What changed?
• How: What helped make the change happen?
• For multilingual learners, students may write or create in a home language and share a translation or summary only if they choose.

Emotional Safety

• Build in choice:
  • Students may write privately
  • Students do not need to disclose personal experiences
  • Students may pass during sharing
• If students discuss violence, grief, or safety concerns, follow school or organization support protocols.

Assessment

• Students demonstrate understanding when they can:
• imagine a future connected to safety or belonging;
• identify roles for self, others, systems, and conditions;
• explain that social change requires more than individual good intentions;
• create an artifact that communicates a future vision;
• name one realistic next step or question connected to that vision.