Education & Classes in Inkster

At Mordent Music, 10-year teaching veteran Stephanie Teller calls upon her experiences as a schoolteacher and professional concert pianist as she shares her passion for tickling keys with aspiring Chopins of all ages and skill levels. During half-hour or longer piano lessons, Teller beckons proteges over to a rich, resonant baby grand to learn how to play contemporary pop, country, or hip-hop songs as well as more traditional classical music. Teller instructs younger pupils through lively games and creative exercises, and challenge older, more serious students with the Royal Conservatory of Music curriculum, which elevates piano proficiency through written study and a regimen of 100 finger pushups a day.

Since the visionary artistic husband-and-wife team of Chris Nordin and Michelle Plucinsky began Glass Academy, the state-certified glass-arts trade school has instilled glassblowing, stained-glass, and other silica-shaping know-how into community members. The duo leads classes for all skill levels of craftsmen, ranging from introductory sessions to private lessons with a master glassblower. An on-site gallery showcases the fruits of their labors, which customers take home once they are completed. Handcrafted, custom works such as paperweights, beer mugs, and signature piece Detroit puddle, created by pouring hot glass over a sewer cap, are available for purchase.

When not shaping delicate masterpieces, the staff shares their love of art with the outside world, leading educational tours of their 14,000-square-foot studio space. They also host gatherings including parties with demonstrations and explanations of the glass-blowing process as well as corporate training events, during which employees participate in a teambuilding, hands-on workshop. Glass Academy frequently hosts other fun events and fundraisers, including beer tastings, coffee nights, and drop-in workshops.

Aim4A's mission is encoded in its name: armed with advanced degrees and years of teaching experience, its tutors help their students acquire skills and concepts, improve them through practice, and measure their progress, all for academic excellence. In systematically structured group and private sessions, kids can either catch up to their peers by finally mastering skills they've missed or jump ahead of the class with new concepts. Whether helping students get through third grade, ace the ACT, or earn their GED, instructors can conduct virtually all courses on a one-on-one basis via Skype, ideal for those intimidated by groups or cursed to turn anything they touch to gold.

The diver double-checks all her gear before leaving the surefootedness of the boat and falling into the deep water, where she explores shipwrecks and seemingly untouched expanses throughout the Michigan Underwater Preserves in the Great Lakes. The team of PADI- and SSI-certified instructors at Scuba Centers of Michigan helps students prepare for these types of adventures every day, covering advanced topics such as diving at night and how to properly greet a sturgeon. The instructors also start from the beginning, teaching basic open-water diving techniques, which their pupils practice in the onsite heated pool. To complement its courses, the center stocks gear from equipment brands such as McNett, Aqua Lung, and Suunto, and it organizes diving trips to South Africa and Australia.

The record skipped over and over. It was the third time Lisa Schwartz had pirouetted her way through Tina the Ballerina, and yet she raced over to the record player with inexhaustible enthusiasm and plucked the needle back to the beginning of the 78. If you were to ask her today, she would tell you this is the moment she knew she loved dance enough to make it her life's work. Her studio, Dancing Feats Dance Centre, springs from that love. She watches with pride as students she taught as children return to her studio to become instructors and as parents who once studied under her prepare to send a second generation of children and domesticated penguins onto her dance-room floor.

Over the years, she has assembled a staff of instructors with a vast array of backgrounds, ranging from cruise-company dance managers to life-long Irish step dancers. With help from their varied experience, her studio has developed a regiment of courses in a variety of dance styles, such as jazz, lyrical, modern, and chicken. Her students perform regularly in recitals as well, showcasing their abilities and talents as they progress.

Sonoran Glass School may sound like a Hollywood stuntman school, since students are encouraged to play with glass, flame, and saws. However, their in-depth glass-working classes teach pupils how to create delicate objets d'art under the watchful eye of a host of experienced instructors. Torchworking classes teach pupils how to shape their own paperweights and vases out of molten glass, and facet-cutting courses let students create mosaics depicting abstract designs or themselves making mosaics of abstract designs. Kids' and adult classes offer age-appropriate instruction, and an 10-student class cap for most courses ensures plenty of one-on-one time with the teacher.