By: Megan Prats
1/18/2014

As always I was inspired to add this new category – exiting the comfort zone – to the 2learn® Bank after seeing its positive effects on one of my students during a lesson. Like all of the other categories within the 2learn® Bank, the student should be rewarded when displaying this attribute because it is necessary for the student to grow. Thus, when the student exits her comfort zone, she comes one step closer to achieving her learning goals.

For instance, to see results in muscle development from your exercises in the gym, you have to push your muscles, you have to give your muscles a reason to grow. Conversely, if you work out and you don’t push the physical limitations of your muscular structure, you will not see any results. Learning functions in the same fashion in the sense that effective learning makes the difference in results, not solely time spent and effort inputed. Thus, if the student spends a lot of time practicing the same song without correcting her mistakes, the hours spent practicing are wasted because the student didn’t do the necessary action to take her learning to the next level – exiting her comfort zone.

In order to successfully reward the student when she is exiting the comfort zone, you should do the following:

• accurately identify what the student’s comfort zone is, and

The obvious first step is to accurately assess what the student’s comfort zone is. If the student is comfortable playing rock music and voluntarily decides to jam to another rock tune during the lesson, you should not reward the student for exiting her comfort zone because she simply hasn’t left her comfort zone yet. The student’s comfort zone applies to not only tackling subject matter that is currently beyond her reach, but also the student’s limitations in problem-solving. Thus, if the student can comfortably think “outside of the box” but struggles with Logic and Reason, the student hasn’t exited her comfort zone when she thinks “outside of the box” to solve the problem instead of utilizing logic and reason because thinking “outside of the box” lies within her comfort zone.

• reward the student when she voluntarily pushes the limits.

A key component to exiting the comfort zone is it’s voluntary nature. If you push the student to exit her comfort zone you are doing her a favor, but it is a behavior that should not be rewarded because for the student to benefit from this attribute in the real-world, she has to do it for herself.

Because exiting the comfort zone requires effort as well as perseverance, the two fall under the Effort category in the 2learn® Bank. However, the key difference between the two is the area in which they can be applied. Perseverance is broadly applicable in the sense that the student can demonstrate perseverance when operating within her comfort zone. Thus, the student that innately plays by ear but runs into a little issue with learning a specific song by ear hasn’t exited her comfort zone, but has exhibited perseverance, when she puts forth effort to learn the specific song because playing by ear is comfortable for her. However, exiting the comfort zone is when the student takes a voluntarily leap in a new area of learning that is challenging for the student. Thus, if the student normally plays by ear but then decides to read the same song that she was learning by ear which is a lot more difficult for her to do, then she has exited her comfort zone.

Effort is key in learning because no matter how innately intelligent or able the student is, talent can only take the student so far. For the student to continue to progress in her journey of learning she must learn that discomfort needs to be met with effort to see results. Thus, if you accurately identify what the student’s comfort zone is and reward the student when she voluntarily pushes the limits, you have rightly increased the student’s learning bank for exiting the comfort zone.

© Megan Prats 2014