Moderately stretching a student's comfort zone without leaping suddenly outside of it promotes exploration and learning — so long as the classroom environment and culture encourages a reasonable amount of risk-taking, according to Natalia Ortiz, clinical assistant professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development.
“The first two or three weeks of any classroom are critical in establishing a learning community where we are trying things, leaning into discomfort and making mistakes,” she said. “Before you ask any student to take a risk and lean into discomfort in an assignment, it’s super-important for the teacher to set up a classroom that becomes a space to take risks — that it’s normalized and supported to stretch beyond your comfort zone.”
Ortiz thinks in terms of the green, yellow and red zones of proximal development: Green can be too comfortable and easy to excel, while red is too uncomfortable, with expectations that are unrealistically high and quickly rising. That, she said, can make students feel unsafe and disconnect from their learning.
“Then, the yellow zone is a stretch. You feel supported enough to lean into uncomfortable assignments. You have the right scaffolding,” she said, adding that it's called "productive discomfort."
To establish the right backdrop, Ortiz suggests that teachers assign seats on day one and place students next to classmates they don’t know, and then ask them to share parts of themselves with one another. “Everybody comes in very protected and guarded. How do we break that down a little bit?” she asked.
Teachers should model that themselves, divulging important aspects of their own identity, being a little vulnerable, leaning into discomfort, and sharing new ideas, Ortiz said. From there, when making assignments like presentations where students work in a group, teachers can ask students to share their strengths and areas where they may need support, she said.
“This person may be good at graphic design, so we will lean on them for a PowerPoint” presentation, she added. “This person is good at research. Some people are good at oral speaking, so have them do three slides in the presentation where others may do one — but still [have the others] lean into the discomfort of speaking. We want to stretch ourselves.”
How to begin
Ortiz recommends that teachers start with smaller, lower-stakes risks early in the school year, and that they refrain from asking students to stretch their comfort zones on a daily basis or with every single assignment.
“We definitely want students to be able to return to something familiar,” she said. Otherwise, “it can be a little exhausting, rather than developmental.”
A stretch, she said, should be ongoing but not constant. “And we want them to reflect when they do the stretch,” Ortiz said. “‘Why did this feel uncomfortable? Would I do it again, and why or why not?’”
That approach helps those who don’t like doing a presentation, for example, think about why that is and why they should try them anyway, Ortiz said. “The debrief process allows the student to see, ‘I may not like this, but I can see why it’s important for my developmental journey.’”
As students gain more confidence in stretching themselves, teachers should give them more autonomy in how and where to do so, Ortiz said.
“That’s part of establishing the right cadence and thinking about how we prevent overwhelm,” she said. “And emphasizing a growth mindset and normalizing mistakes — there’s no such thing as perfection. It goes against what learning is. Making sure that ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not sure’ are definitely acceptable responses when you need more time to think.”
Whether a student hates talking in front of a crowd, moving around the classroom, or drawing a picture of themselves, surviving the discomfort involved in doing so builds their resilience, Ortiz said.
Ultimately, that process, Ortiz said, is more important than the result.
