The ‘Okie School of Adventure’ is one family’s answer for anyone who learns by doing

There was a time, just a few years ago, when Neil Turner wouldn’t even have attempted to get his son Alex to sit down and try to learn from a book.

There were simply too many icebergs along the educational route even for a subject as interesting as the Titanic.

Neil recalls, “Just getting him to sit and do a worksheet was near impossible.”

On the autism spectrum, Alex had trouble mainstreaming at public school.

The Turner family’s solution was a radical one.

Neil quit his engineering job and took over as Alex’s sole educator.

Through some fits and starts, he began to notice that Alex seemed to learn better by doing.

“We tried to adapt the way we approach school to incorporate as much of that as we could.”

So they hit the road.

The Turners stared with lessons while on driving vacations.

Neil’s wife suggested sharing videos through social media, and that’s how the ‘Okie School of Adventure’ got started.

Alex explained how they chose some of their field trips, saying, “How it got started was me saying, ‘hey! I want to go there’.”

Neil adds, “It was a lot more fun for me to be a teacher using this type of style.”

Dad used his son’s natural curiosity to plan field trips to all kinds of different places, and to do lots of different things.

Writing up scripts and editing videos was a great way to review and share.

“I think, by now, we have about 100 of these videos up,” Alex figures.

So we got to go along on an adventure as well, to the only state licensed shrimp farm in Oklahoma, Guthrie’s Pansies and Prawn.

Alex and Neil got lessons in biology and chemistry from owners Andy and Micah Chapman.

Explaining his careful monitoring of water temperature, Andy says, “We set a target area of between 82 and 86 degrees.”

There are lots of different avenues for knowledge to find its way to memory and understanding.

Neil and Alex found one way, and then did the best possible thing.

They passed that knowledge on.