Performance Zone vs Learning Zone

The benefits of establishing a growth mindset towards learning and self-improvement have been thoroughly researched and well documented.  Since Carol Dweck published her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success in 2006, educationalists have been discussing and dissecting the obvious advantages of maintaining a growth mindset.  From perseverance to curiosity, from an emphasis on learning and effort to a positive view of constructive feedback, a healthy growth mindset certainly enables pupils to thrive in an environment where challenges are opportunities and setbacks are moments to cherish rather than fear.  But how do exams fit into this model?  Is every moment a chance to learn and improve or are there some moments (as the patient said to their surgeon) when you just need to get it right?

It leads to an interesting juxtaposition.  On one side, you have the virtues of growth mindset such as teaching children to see the word ‘fail’ as a ‘first attempt in learning’, or preaching about the merits of the word ‘yet’, as in ‘I’m not able to do xyz yet,’ or asking them to embrace difficulties as chances to grow and learn, viewing effort as a path to mastery and improvement and persisting in the face of setbacks and on the other side you have… standardised testing with grade boundaries, pass and fail and quantitative data to compare them to each other.  It doesn’t feel fair. 

Children thrive in an environment where the success of others is applauded because it is inspirational and is seen as a learning opportunity rather than a threat, where they know it will all be okay because they are only ever competing with their ‘yesterday self’, where the first question is not ‘did you win?’ but ‘did you learn anything new?’.  And then we put them in a silent, stuffy hall full of thousands of their peers and ask them to compete directly with each other for the finite opportunities which lay ahead in their future like a pen and pencil version of The Hunger Games.  Dramatic? Probably.  But for most young people it must be perplexing and at least a bit daunting, leading to test anxiety and stress, fear and sleeplessness. 

The answer is to develop a healthy balance between existing in the learning zone and in the performance zone.  Existing in the learning zone enables students to improve without fear, to embrace challenges and even mistakes and to view setbacks as an expected part of development.  To cheat while in the learning zone would be pointless, after all, the goal is to get some, if not most, of the questions wrong so that improvement can occur.  Being allowed to spend as much time as possible in the learning zone allows each learner to have autonomy over their learning, to get things incorrect, seek and value feedback and grow in a culture of experimentation which values improvement over performance.

However, if students only ever exist in the learning zone, they miss out on the opportunity to demonstrate what they know and can do to the best of their ability.  They are not provided with chances to feel the pride of demonstrating their learning as flawlessly as possible, to feel the butterflies that come with a one off ‘performance’ or build up the strength and focus to thrive in high stakes testing environments which are the finish line of each of the key stages of learning in the UK.  Without ever spending time in the performance zone, students could lose the resilience required to face terminal examinations and the cutting-edge mindset needed to compete in the global marketplace of the future. 

This is where private tutoring can help.  By practising, as accurately as possible, for moments in the future when students will be required to exist in the performance zone (even for hours or weeks at a time, as is the case with SATs, GCSE and A Level examinations) private tutors enable pupils to build a familiarity with formal, summative testing in a safe and personalised environment.  Tutors also enable pupils to spend most of their time in the learning zone – asking enquiries arising from exploration, getting questions incorrect and persevering to understand why, balancing challenge and improvement and working together as a collective partnership to build a positive, forward thinking growth mindset – which is the best way to create a platform for progress.  The best of both worlds.

Jeremy Smith