Education & Classes in Tamalpais-Homestead Valley

Stepping behind the bar at a nightclub typically results in being escorted off the premises. For students of San Francisco School of Bartending, however, it often results in a job. The school complements its 35-hour bartender certification course with mini shifts at a nightclub, where students learn to manage a crowded bar without responding “no” to every order. In classroom sessions, meanwhile, students learn the tricks of the trade, such as how to set up a bar, blend drinks, and free pour. Beyond directly drink-related skills, they also learn to properly handle money and craft compelling resumés. The flexible class times accommodate all schedules, and graduates can return to the school for unlimited job-placement aid.

Before she founded her eponymous ballroom school, Rhona Pick represented the United States at world dance championships in Berlin and London at famed venues such as Royal Albert Hall. Although she has since retired from dancing competitively, she culls from her experience to manage her school in accordance with the framed Code of Ethics that hangs on the office door. The code mandates that each teacher on her team holds professional teaching qualifications, a standard that guarantees the quality of the school’s private and group classes, in styles that range from salsa to tango and swing. Instructors can also choreograph wedding dances, ensuring that couples don’t have to spend their reception’s first song hiding in the supply closet.

Students swirl the wine in their glasses, scrutinizing the legs that form and inhaling the fragrances before taking slow, calculated sips. They hold the wine in their mouths, blindly matching the wine's notes and overtones to the 70–80 international wines they've tasted during the 30-hour advanced Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) certification course. In classes such as these, the instructors at Discover Wine & Spirits Academy—many of whom hold DWS (Diploma Wine and Spirits) and WSET certifications—foster a supportive but challenging atmosphere, either by sparking complex discussions or slowly filling the room with wine. For those not training for certification, they helm a Wine 101 class that unveils the basics of wine history, tasting terminology, and food-and-wine pairing. They also lead daylong classes on specific regions to uncover the varied flavors of Argentinean wines, explore the Old-World winemaking traditions of France, or try to relate to the fatalistic neorealism of Italian wines.

Recently profiled by The Atlantic for its members' innovative inventions, TechShop’s supportive community of inventors, artists, technicians, and alchemists share their excitement about the next big idea in an environment limited only by their collective imagination. The 17,000-square-foot smorgasbord of inventive creativity beckons people of all skill levels to its DIY confines, where members can wield tools not found in most private workshops, slicing through steel with a plasma cutter or accessing 3-D design software to finally realize the goal of crawling inside the Internet. Hands-on classes jump-start creative juices, introducing students to vocational skills including welding, soldering, and woodworking. Neophyte inventors aged 12–17 are welcome but must be accompanied by a parent or guardian to ensure they don't break physics.

Trained by legendary acting teacher Sanford Meisner, Christy English Wioncek opened the Bay Area Acting Studio to teach a new generation of actors how to—in the words of her mentor—"live truthfully under imaginary circumstances." Her stable of equally Meisner-steeped instructors leads classes including introductory adult courses, intensive courses for working thespians, and children's classes for young'uns looking to break into the industry early or convince babysitters they've been diagnosed with a life-threatening ice-cream deficiency.

An alumna of New York City’s Actors Studio, Shelley Mitchell won acclaim for her one-woman performance of Talking with Angels: Budapest 1943, which Los Angeles Weekly lauded for its “leisurely, lifelike timing” and “excruciating beauty.” Shelley draws on her extensive teaching and acting experience at institutions such as The Dublin Fringe Theatre Festival to teach dramatic acting to film, television, and theater thespians at the Arts Center of San Francisco. Three-hour classes develop individual concentration and emotional response through sense memory exercises before students partner up for scripted scene work or practice tumbling into the orchestra pit. Eight-week courses introduce pupils to acting fundamentals, while three or ten-month intensive training grants unlimited studio access, weekly or biweekly lessons, and private sessions with Shelley to dedicated participants.