Finding life beyond the classroom walls: a Change Laboratory supporting expansive de-encapsulation of school

Abstract

In an encapsulated classroom, the school text – the knowledge conveyed by teachers and textbooks and reproduced in tests and exams – tends to become the object of the activity instead of being an instrument for understanding the world. In order to understand and promote sustainable de-encapsulation, we need to identify, document, analyze, and foster a wide variety of actions and practices. Our article contributes to this need by presenting a practical, methodological, and conceptual framework for de-encapsulation in schools. In this study, 8th graders from one comprehensive school in Finland worked on projects chosen by themselves, with the support of researchers during the school year. The projects were carried out in Change Laboratory intervention, a method of participatory analysis and design based on the theory of expansive learning. We built an analytical framework to examine how students took actions to break out of the encapsulated classroom and school while working on the projects significant for them. The expansive de-encapsulation actions were analyzed using three dimensions: 1) the individual or collective nature of the de-encapsulation efforts; 2) the direction of the movement, and 3) the composition of the movement. The findings show significant variation of de-encapsulation actions in the four projects. None of the four project groups was unable or unwilling to engage in de-encapsulation. This indicates that there is a broad spectrum of possible student-led projects that can, in a variety of ways, involve and nourish actions of expansive de-encapsulation. Allowing students to create and lead their own projects has strong potential for the opening up of the school and creating partnerships with progressive actors outside the school.