SANTA ANA, Calif. -- My 10-year-old is similar to a lot of boys his age: Getting him out of bed most weekdays would be more easily accomplished with a cattle prod.

He loathes going to school.

So last month I took him somewhere other than Los Angeles Unified. It was only for a day, and it wasn't in a traditional classroom.

But it's never been easier for me to get him up and out the door than it was for Dirt Bike School, where he suited up like an astronaut and zipped around the dirt astride a motorcycle.

As a mom who's been motorcycling my entire adult life, I'd been waiting for the day I could introduce my kid to dirt bikes so we could spend more time together - outdoors and away from the tyranny of screens. My fantasy had begun while my son in utero, but it was only when he my son became an avid BMXer, jumping curbs and skidding his rear tire on our way to the corner store, that I decided it was finally time.

Dirt Bike School is available to children as young as 6, but my boy was just getting the hang of pedal bikes at that point. Replacing his bicycle's hand grip with a throttle at that age would probably have ended with an ambulance.

No, it seemed far wiser to introduce my boy to the simple pleasure of twisting a grip while wearing full safety gear under the watchful eye of an instructor in an environment bounded with Tuff Blox, which was the scene at the Honda Rider Education Center in Colton, where I'd signed the two of us up for a private lesson at a total cost of $400 for five hours.

Our lesson was supposed to start at 10, but we were instructed to be there at 9:30. Why only became obvious after we were instructed to suit up. Between the elbow, knee and chest protectors; the jersey, the socks and the pants; the boots, the gloves, the goggles and our helmets; it took us 15 minutes just to get dressed. Then we hobbled off to the dirt patch to meet our bikes and George � the instructor who'd teach us how to ride them.

"I wish this class existed when I was your age," George told my son. Almost 40 years ago, when George first learned to ride in the dirt, his dad taught him and his brothers using a shared bike that suffered more than a few tipovers.

It's likely many dirt bike families still do the same. But for families like mine, who lack the bikes and, more importantly, the skills, Dirt Bike School is a great option. Available since 2000, Dirt Bike School is one of 23 different courses the Motorcycle Safety Foundation offers to teach riders at every skill level.

I've been street riding for more than 20 years, but dirt is a different beast. Most of the riding is standing up, instead of sitting down. Turning isn't a matter of counter steering, as it is on the pavement, but skidding and drifting around corners.

It wasn't just my son who needed school to learn. I did, too.

Dirt Bike School is based around a series of lessons that begin as verbal instructions, followed by riding that puts those instructions into practice. It started with the basics of learning how to properly mount the bike and turn it on, then operate the clutch, throttle and brakes and, finally, to ride - or, in my son's case, ride briefly, before dumping the clutch, over revving the throttle and going down.

But there was something in the combination of adrenaline and youth and safety gear that got him back on the bike each time he tumbled to the ground � smiling even � as he learned to weave through cones, power over 2-by-4s and, eventually, chase me around the course taunting, "You're so slow!"

This from a kid who, a couple of hours earlier, feared shifting into second gear.

Mission accomplished.

• Read more articles by SUSAN CARPENTER

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