Out in Left Field
As already noted, true learning only really occurs outside the Competency Zone. We've also noted that the boundaries of these zones are not discrete. Not only are they a gradient, blurring from one zone to the next, the knowledge/lack of knowledge varies within the zones. One may be (a) effortlessly competent at one aspect of the job, while (b) not having a clue about other knowledge and skills needed. Indeed, one may also be unaware of (b) and therefore in a state of Second Order Ignorance (2OI) for that particular knowledge.
These caveats aside, the Learning Edge is where true acquisition of "new" knowledge occurs. This knowledge typically builds on and extends previously acquired knowledge, but it can also be of the paradigm shift form which requires a reassessment and restructuring of much of the previously acquired and integrated knowledge[1].
If the only place true learning occurs is in the Learning Edge, the most rapid learning occurs on the edge of the Learning Edge. This is labeled Accelerated Learning. Here, we are furthest from our previously acquired knowledge and skill set. There are a number of reasons why the rate of knowledge acquisition can be the highest here:
The distance between the needed competency and the task difficulty means that the existing body of knowledge and skill set are most obviously inadequate. Assuming the person does not retreat from the challenge and is able to view this inadequacy as a green field of knowledge acquisition, this can serve as a strong incentive to knuckle down and learn.
It is likely that the environment where the accelerated learning can occur is also an environment where the sought-after knowledge is most prevalent and most accessible—its presence is how the inadequacy is recognized. This observation falls under the purview of the Dual Hypotheses of Knowledge Discovery, specifically the first hypothesis: We can only "discover" knowledge in an environment that contains that knowledge.
There are a number of reasons why most of us choose not to spend our waking hours in the accelerated learning zone—there are strong pressures that mitigate against learning when we step out of our Competency Zone:
In the Comfort Zone
As already mentioned, most of us (myself included) are way happier when working with things we know, especially if we can effortlessly and confidently display our skills and knowledge—indicating that we are certainly in our Competency Zone and mostly in the Comfort Zone. It is often here that we attract the most compliments on our abilities. We like that.Just in the Anxiety Zone
As the label of the zone beyond Accelerated Learning indicates, when we are in this zone, we are likely to be anxious about admitting and displaying our incompetence. This is more a social pressure than a knowledge pressure [2].Further into the Anxiety Zone
As we move further away from the Competency Zone and the knowledge we have while there, it may be that the "new" knowledge is so different from the "old" that learning the new stuff is inhibited. If the "new" knowledge differs radically from what we already know, we may not be able to: (a) recognize it when we see it (b) acknowledge that it exists (c) make linkages to our existing body of knowledge (d) be able to effectively integrate it and then apply the knowledge.
Given these caveats, however, we can reasonably assert that the further we can go into the Anxiety Zone, the more likely the new pickings will be good.
US Marine Corps
The US Marine Corps (USMC) has a practice of bringing its new recruits into the Parris Island or San Diego Depot at 2:00am. This is not an accident. They catch these young men and women when they are tired and disoriented. And then they plunge them headfirst into the deep water of Marine Basic Training. The Corps destabilizes them intentionally so that their previous coping mechanisms no longer work as they used to. The cadets are pushed further than they have ever been in their short lives. Specifically, they are pushed way up into the Anxiety Zone because it is there that, over the next 13 weeks, they will learn how to be a US Marine.
This training is very stressful. But if a promising cadet starts to break down, the Corps will usually back off the intensity, provide additional resources, encourage the recruit's fellow cadets to support, and give the cadet some breathing space to recover before the pressure is reapplied. Ultimately, if a recruit cannot handle basic training given reasonable support, the person is considered not cut from the material necessary to be a Marine.
This is a very intentional process that has been honed over many decades and the recruits learn more in the 13 weeks of basic training than perhaps they have learned in the last ten years.
The Outward Bound School
Established by a refugee from Nazi Germany named Kurt Hahn, the Outward Bound School (OBS) takes at-risk youth out into wilderness areas and puts them through a sometimes grueling regime of hiking, canoeing, and climbing often in quite harsh and even somewhat dangerous conditions. Hahn believed in Williams James's concept of the moral equivalent of war [3]. By this, he noted that warfare has a very strong binding effect on the people who go through it together. However, Hahn wanted to duplicate the experience of shared hardship and deprivation and even a certain amount of danger and allow young people to experience it together but without the violence and killing associated with war. Hahn founded Gordonstoun school (attended by the Duke of Edinburgh among others), Atlantic College, and the OBS. From its start in the UK, OBS has since spread across the world including five schools in the USA.
In the US, small parties of young people regularly trek out into the north woods of Minnesota, across the southern deserts in Texas and Arizona, climb the mountains in California and Colorado, sail off the coast of Maine, sea kayak in Florida and participate in a variety of other adventures. They might hike 25 miles in one day carrying a 70lb backpack and then have to locate water in the desert in order to cook their evening meal. They might sail along the Atlantic coast of Maine and sleep under the stars on planks spread across their open pulling boat. They might canoe through grade 3 water on the Rio Grande followed by climbing a 200' rockface followed by hiking a goat trail up to the 7,824' summit of Emory Peak.
The physical challenges push the participants way into the Anxiety Zone. And, in much the same way the US Marine Corps basic training operates, the young people come out of the experience changed. In this case, while they might learn useful backwoods skills, such as how to mush a dogsled team, the primary learning is of their own fortitude and self-worth.
No Pain, No Gain
Both of these enterprises: the USMC and OBS freely admit that learning--accelerated learning--is uncomfortable, difficult, even dangerous. By pushing people way beyond their comfort zone, they teach them that their capability is much greater than they thought it was.
And they end up being changed, which is the primary effect of any major learning activity.
FOOTNOTES
[1] It is this reassessment that causes most pain. It might require a complete rejection of things already learned, something which is very, very difficult for most people.
[2] Which is why setting the learning in a "game-type" or adventure paradigm and environment can help. When "playing a game" it is usually more personally and socially acceptable to display ineffectiveness and to "fail." This is the basis of game-centered education.
[3] This was the title of an essay by William James given in a lecture at Stanford University and subsequently published in 1910 after his death.