Education & Classes in Norwood

At The Learning Kitchen, highly trained instructors will help chop-happy visitors pick up handy tips for deft cuisine preparation. Grub-crafting students will slice, dice, and nibble-ize tongue-luring fare amid a sleek kitchen classroom. Top-notch boiling, frying, searing, and particle-accelerating equipment is on hand at 12 cooking stations as participants learn to wield quality knives and shurikens with nimble-handed dexterity. Chefs not only provide step-by-step instruction, but also teach useful chopping and sautéing techniques. A wide range of hands-on cooking classes is available, including a gnocchi workshop, neighborhood barbecue, vegetarian proteins, sushi rolling, and Thai. When dinner is done, students will sample their scrumptiously prepared meals in a sit-down dining area. Before they leave, students will receive recipe copies, saving them the trouble of scrubbing their hands free of ditto-machine wax.

As RHC Riding Academy’s head trainer, Erin Reid shares a passion for horses that began when her family founded RHC in 1985. A devotee to all things equine since age 5, Erin quickly caught onto the finer points of riding and has instructed students for the past 19 years. Barn manager Debra Reid, who discovered her life’s passion while growing up in Kentucky, managed 70 horses at a breeding facility in Southern California and unites her experience with Erin's. Together they oversee nine horses, several of which are Arabians—prized for their distinctive beauty and superior intellects.

Students come to the facility from all backgrounds to learn proper saddling and riding techniques. Erin supplements her technical training with lessons in horse psychology, helping students bond with steeds or to get them to open up about complex relationships with their mothers. Horses in need of discipline or a hay-filled couch on which to crash can be boarded and trained at the facility, which boasts box stalls, an indoor riding arena, and a large outdoor arena.

Fibergé's kaleidoscopic array of yarns from brand names such as Blue Sky Alpaca, Spud & Chloe, and Rowan beckons knitters far and wide into the boutique, where they'll also find the needles and accouterments needed to pursue creative knitting endeavors of all kinds. The shop's expert artisans host a schedule of intimately sized classes, during which they expose beginners to basic knitting fundamentals and challenge preacquainted yarn binders with slightly more complicated projects, such as knitting baby hats and lobster mittens. For more advanced classes, stitchers use their favorite skeins and their own trusty needles to craft one of more than 200 patterns.

Originally from Cartersville, Virginia, Elliott Jordan traveled south to pursue his passion, sojourning in Kentucky, where he received his bachelor’s in art and eventually his master’s in arts education. Experienced in portraiture, Jordan has transformed expressive countenances into works of art for more than 40 years, and his work has been displayed from the East to the Midwest—gracing the walls of the Cincinnati City Hall, Kentucky State University, and the historic Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Connecticut. Following a number of inspiring visits to Ghana, Jordan became a collector and dealer of African art, and today he displays and sells African artifacts at his gallery, as well as his own works and gold-framed pizza-delivery menus. He leads a number of painting classes inside the gallery's studio, where students follow along to create unique and colorful creations.

The certified flight instructors at Aviators Flight Academy have been helping fledgling pilots earn their wings for more than three decades. Students take off from Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport toward the earth’s giant blue tarp using the academy’s fleet of Cessna and Piper fixed-wing aircraft, performing basic maneuvers under a teacher’s expert supervision. Beyond introductory lessons, students can also enroll in the flight-training school to earn their license and finally be able to impersonate pilots at airport bars.

At The Scuba Shack, the staff’s family-oriented lessons encourage divers to take social rather than solo ventures into the blue beyond. Each instructor carries an impressive résumé of underwater travels—the head trainer has been diving for more than 20 years and others have logged more than 1,000 dives. Captaining PADI-certification courses and specialty seminars—which cover topics such as night diving, photography, and fish identification—they take groups on open-water excursions to area lakes and Clear Spring Scuba Park. They prioritize educating their charges with safe and enjoyable teachings, rather than monotonous quizzes on whether the bends is a serious health issue or a 1980s punk band. With trips to dive sites in Fiji and Mexico, they introduce divers to the visual wonder of reefs and aquatic wildlife throughout the world.