Welcome to the Heroic Zone of Proximal Development. Part of the name for this blog is taken from psychologist Lev Vygotsky concept of the ZPD as “the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can do with help.” Here’s one illustration of the ZPD:
As a teacher and as a lifelong learner, I try to aim for that golden ZPD every day. And remembering Vygotsky’s concepts about the importance of social interactions in education, it is important to remember the guidance in the Zone can come from peers, teachers, and mentors.
In the AP English classroom, the mentors quite often are the texts we experience as an academic community. In my mind, those who constantly push themselves into the ZPD are living the heroic life and are on a wondrous archetypal quest worthy of emulation.