Are you learning what you set out to learn or are you learning all there is to learn?

The bus pulled up in the bus loop facing the shiny aquarium and Mr. Berkshire signaled to the students in an attempt to focus their buzzing excitement on the instructions he needed to deliver.  This was a field trip, an educational outing and the students needed to hear their objectives so that they could make the most out of their experience.

Parent chaperones directed the children to listen and slowly the excited roar of jokes and predictions and wishes dimmed.

Mr. Berkshire smiled.  Now he could remind them of their syllabus for the day.  He handed a sheaf of paper to the parents in the front row and the papers fluttered back through the rows until each child held a worksheet.

“Now,” Mr. Berkshire intoned, “the purpose of this trip is to see the fish and other animals that we have been studying in our unit on marine biology.  You have your worksheet and it has the list of exhibits and the questions for each exhibit.  When you have completed the worksheet, you may return to the bus.“
The bus door cranked open and they piled out into the plaza in front of the aquarium and formed into their smaller groups.  The knowledge scavenger hunt had begun.

Langdon had, in his 8 years of education, experienced numerous field trips. He knew what to do.  He fell in behind his friend’s mother and filed into the entrance of the aquarium, his worksheet curled in his hand.

One by one, they found the target exhibits and gathered the target information.  Sardines swam in a tight three-foot tube, each unaware that in following the tail of the other they were, in fact, going nowhere.  Langdon and his fellow students scanned the sign beside the exhibit and dutifully recorded the number of miles such fish swim in an average lifespan.

At the seabird tank, they filled in the waiting spot in the sentence that described a galliot’s migratory lifestyle.  At the shark tank, they recorded the number of teeth an average shark loses in a lifetime.  For each approved tank, a sentence on the worksheet waited with a slash to receive the approved information.

Only two unfilled sentences remained and Langdon’s group rode the escalator back to the first floor.  Their chaperone scanned left and right, looking for a sign to indicate the location of the jellyfish tank.  Hailey scanned her answer to be sure that her worksheet would make a good grade.  Connor idly watched the escalator step and experimented with leaving his hand on the unmoving side panel while the handrail and steps progressed.

Langdon looked ahead and caught a flash of sunlight through a set of doors set into the wall opposite the escalator.  Intrigued, he bent his head to better see what lay beyond those doors, but the view was blocked.

At the bottom, Connor’s Mom charged off the left, barking, “This way.  There are the jellyfish.” Hailey and Connor swung in behind.

Langdon paused.  To his right, the sun glinted through the glass doors.  At the least minute, as his group disappeared into one of the exhibit entrances, Langdon found his feet heading for the doors.

Outside, the arc of the aquarium hugged a natural tidal pool, open to the ocean.  A u-shaped walkway hugged the back wall of the building.  Along the railing, one or two visitors stood watching the sea fill the pools and eddy around the rocks.  Langdon walked to the railing, mesmerized by the sight of seagrasses dancing in the incoming water.  Small creatures clung to the rocks—urchins, sea stars, snails.

Off to the left, the shelf that supported the tidal pool slipped off into deeper water.  Something splashed and darted in the water.  A pair of sea otters, their soft fur sleek in the water, twirled around each other.

Beyond, the ocean filled the horizon.  In that ocean, sardines swam in straight lines and sharks lost teeth while feeding and seabirds bobbed at rest in order to travel remarkable distances to nest on cliff faces.  Nothing in that ocean could be contained in the simple slash of a fill in the blank statement.  The ocean was bigger than the worksheet and the chapter on Marine Biology and the test that Langdon and his classmates would all take in May to prove that they had learned what they were supposed to learn.

Langdon swallowed hard as a very uncomfortable thought formed in his mind.  What if learning limited by a worksheet blocked other, more important learning?

Connor’s mother, her voice tinged with irritation and a little touch of relief, broke into his thoughts.
“There you are.  There aren’t any jellyfish out here.  Now you’re just going to have to copy your answer from Hailey’s worksheet.  We have to find the sea otters and then we can get back to the bus.”

Langdon pointed to the frolicking pair of otters below the railing but Connor‘s Mom had already charged back through the door.  With a sigh, Langdon soaked in one last view of the rocks and the tide and the tiny creatures.  He wondered how they breathed when the water covered them.  He wondered what they ate and how they communicated.  Was the water cool or hot?  What had the incoming tide already hidden from view?  He wondered what he hadn’t even yet thought to ask.

With a sigh, Langdon returned to the building and the chaperone and the bus and the school.  But he never quite returned to the tyranny of the syllabus.