This study presents how participatory design, speculative design, systems thinking, and social-emotional learning can support students, teachers and school leadership investigate their sense of agency and possibility – in which students are empowered to create the futures they want to be a part of. This project was created around the concept of social dreaming and the question of how we might democratize learning from teacher-centered to student-led and create time for sense-making within classrooms. It was developed through the insights collected from seven workshops in three countries (India, China, and the U.S.) and a series of prototypes with middle schools in New York City, during the year 2015/16. It uses model-making and systems thinking to translate insights into design principles, and then, prototypes. It ultimately positions the role of design in supporting the creation of systems of learning that are based on the emerging future, through which, learners have the opportunity of exploring and understanding how they can become a part of the story of the future rather than holding onto and embodying the story of the past.