Comfort Zones are for Bros
On where and when learning happens and the language we can use to talk about it.
I get angry when facilitators tell me to get out of my comfort zone. Here’s what I want to say to them.
“I’m a biracial female immigrant…. where exactly do you think my comfort zone is?!”
Who’s usually saying this to me? Someone who I think of as a bro. A bro is someone who has always been part of the majority. They were good enough the day they showed up. They can worry about leveling up or elevating because they were never told that they weren’t good enough because they inhabited the wrong skin or spoke the wrong language or carried insufficient genitals.
Bros grow up and live in a comfort zone. They’ve never had to learn social norms because they determine the social norms. They’re the kind of people who tell you that the only thing stopping you from reaching your true potential is you. It’s your mindset or the fact that you don’t get up at 5am or a lack of regular exercise.
Lots of us don’t know what a comfort zone is. We feel like outsiders no matter where we are, in public or in private. Our survival skills include the ability to smile and nod when people in positions of power say things that are truly offensive to us. We can scan a room and make adjustments faster than a sonic screwdriver.
On the upside, if discomfort is required for learning to happen, then we’re pretty much always learning. But how can we as facilitators or teachers or even parents talk about that particular discomfort that is required for learning to happen?
How about being off balance?
Maintaining physical balance is something all people who walk can do. Balance feels automatic, but there are a thousand process going on to make it happen. There are three separate body systems and countless nerve endings and neurons at work to make sure that the next time you put your foot down, your entire body doesn’t accidentally follow it down to the ground.
Balance is delicate. Watch an infant learning to walk their level of skill wobbles between drunken sailor and panda for a long time before they are striding confidently through a room. As they learn to use their bodies and their brains to restore their balance, they get steadier as their bodies learn.
Cognitively, we do the same work. We use a ton of cognitive shortcuts or heuristics to maintain our cognitive equilibrium. If our brains had to do the work of a body learning to balance every time we saw something new or unfamiliar, daily life would have a lot in common with the blue screen of death. So, short cuts keep us working efficiently.
We don’t get to choose when our bodies are off balance. Sometimes we know it’s coming, like if you take a roller coaster ride or play a contact sport. Other times, it’s a surprise that requires an instant response, you bump into someone, slip on a banana peel, or experience sudden vertigo. Our reactions are nearly as well programmed as balance itself. We engage our core, shift our body weight, wave arms, grab things and regain our balance, if we’re lucky.
Cognitively, we could have the same kind of experience. When our world view or understanding is off balance, we flex our critical thinking skills, ask questions, and seek information until we can find a way to reconcile a new reality or fact or experience with what we already know.
So what happens if we take “being off balance” as the place where learning happens?
For one thing, the onus for creating the situation where learning can happen falls on the teacher or the speaker. Can you shake your audience’s foundations enough that they want to listen to you or engage with your material in order to reestablish their cognitive equilibrium?
We can’t expect people to walk into our material, conversations, or classrooms curious unless we can convince them that they have a problem they need to solve, unless we can find a way to push them off balance just enough to necessitate engaging their learning muscles.
Here are a few things that have disturbed my balance over the past 14 days and I’m grateful for each and every one of them!
Last week, I gave two talks at GETCA, the Edmonton teacher’s convention. The topics were: Embrace Your Ignorance and Storytelling and Antiracism. The first lead to the the conversation that inspired this newsletter. Let me know if you want a copy of the handouts or want a presentation for your organization.
Today at noon, I attended a talk about the shape of dragons as part of the Echoes of Thunder exhibit at the University of Alberta. I was the one in the front row furiously making notes - which was challenging with putting on and taking off reading glasses. I’m officially inspired and scheming about incorporating more dragons into my writing.
My deep dive into dragons will likely start with The Chinese Dragon by L. Newton Hayes, which is available via Project Gutenberg.
On Sunday, I’m getting profile pictures taken. The preparation process requires me to think a lot about branding, which is uncomfortable. This article about why Rhiannon uses the brand name Fenty for her non-music ventures caught my attention.
Found a copy of Roxane Gay’s essay collection, Bad Feminist, at the thrift shop. This is important because I believe books find me. The first essay I read was How to be Friends With Another Woman and it is wonderful. Send it to your girlfriends. Better yet, forward them this newsletter.
Incredible story and pictures of what happens to a family in Tennessee when they can’t get an abortion.