There are things we can do alone, things we can do if someone helps us and things we can’t do even if someone helps. The zone of potential learning is the space between what we can do only if helped and what we cannot do even with help. The concept is important for three reasons. First, a person’s abilities are not evaluated on the basis of what the person knows or can do, but in function of what he/she could do if taught. Second, knowledge is viewed as the result of a dynamic process in constant evolution where teaching takes down scaffolding that is no longer required from the internal margin of the zone of potential learning only to place it on the boundary of what for the moment is the border of what we cannot do even if assisted. Third, it says that teaching by giving instructions or info is of no use. The first point means that tests that students commonly take for admission to university or elsewhere are of limited value because based on what a student knows and not on what a student could do with a teacher. These are tests that look backwards instead of forwards. The phrase “Let’s see what you can do on your own” is wrong from the start. What is instead interesting is “Let’s see what you can do if I help you”. The crucial point concerns the type of help and this is where the second point comes in. Help can be given by other students, both during lessons and at the exam (clearly not by-passing solutions with the excuse of going to the toilet!). The potential of the group is much greater than that of the single individual and also of the sum of the individuals. A bright teacher or examiner who does not just mark papers will discover the contribution of the single students to the final result and this is the evaluation we should care to have. The ability of the teacher/examiner is to give exercises that none of the students can complete on their own, but that the group with the participation of all will solve. Students, teacher, exam and lesson are no longer four cages that bounce along, but instead become components of a single process that is in evolution. The process is the same as the one that works so well in the early years of our life when we learn to speak the language of where we live with the help of siblings, friends and kindergarten without parents giving us tests. At any stage of our lives if we point towards the zone of potential learning, or are helped to do so, we are simultaneously teacher and student.