Education & Classes in West Albany

In the late 1970s, career educators Eileen and Raymond Huntington opened the first Huntington Learning Center in Oradell, New Jersey. Their goal was to take an individualized approach to education, adjusting instructional tactics according to each student's set of needs. Their success in helping K–12 students prepare for exams and improve grades and study skills quickly spawned franchises across New York, New Jersey, and elsewhere.

Today, the certified Huntington tutoring staff uses testing and rubrics for assessing each child's skills, academic needs, and potential for growth. The teachers even note the student's behavior in different testing and academic situations to craft a methodology sensitive to each child's learning style. Teachers also adhere to the company's code of ethics, which stresses professionalism and confidentiality and encourages pupils to improve their grades honestly through dedicated study rather than shortcuts.

When visitors enter Northampton Airport for piloting lessons or sightseeing flights, the FAA-certified instructors are eager to give tours of the facility. During such tours they often like to rehash the former barnstorming center's history since its 1929 inception. They might detail Charles Lindbergh's thrilling descent into the airport, or point visitors toward the southern and western horizons where the Holyoke and Berkshire mountain ranges bask in the fading sunlight.

Today, the partially solar-powered Northampton Airport is a fully modernized aviation center that boasts a community charm as well as a baggage carousel that's pulled by unicorns. The impressive rental fleet of Cessna and Piper aircraft land and take off backgrounded by the lush scenery and sparkling Connecticut River that flows parallel to the runway.

The consortium of professional instructors at Charlotte Ballroom Dance Academy shepherds students of all ages and skill levels through lessons that span the style spectrum. Paired with a partner or teamed up with instructor-founders Zenaida and Bryon Chandler—Latin and Showdance and Open Smooth champions, respectively—students can learn how to cavort through classic waltz and fox-trot romps or swivel through the modern steps of salsa, swing, or mambo. Dancers can develop their skills and confidence in private and group lessons or during jovial practice parties, where they'll trip the light fantastic without tripping on the light itself. Charlotte Ballroom Dance Academy also hosts occasional specialty classes, such as Cardio Ballroom, and leads betrothed couples through special wedding-dance lessons.

Fred Astaire's highly experienced instructors instill clients with the subtle elegance of waltzes, fox trots, and tangos. Private introductory lessons teach a choice of over 20 styles during 40-minute sessions, as individuals or couples dance over the basics of ballroom dance, dance-floor etiquette. Group classes encourage amateur dancers to test out their skills with fellow frolickers during 40 minutes of sashaying and socializing. By the end of their introductory education, students whirl and waltz through the studio's spacious dancing environment with more confidence than the Lord of the Dance at an Irish nightclub.

Perched atop wooden stools along the lengthy counter of Whats Cooking D’s kitchen, culinary students participate in hands-on cooking classes, supper-club evenings, and beer- and wine-brewing demonstrations. Homey wood cabinets, polished steel ovens, and checkerboard wall tiles act as the backdrop for adult classes covering topics such as kitchen fundamentals, complex recipes, and which end of the butcher knife is the handle. Kids’ classes incorporate fun activities, such as cake and cupcake decorating, and parent-child cooking classes allow kids to eat free and adults to take a break from dinnertime cleanup. The kitchen also turns into a brewery for wine- and beer-crafting classes, with an experienced brewmaster teaching libation-making techniques and that alcohol makes you feel feelings.

Robilee McIntyre's sculptures, masks, and crafts have been stylistically compared to Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss. The slanted roofs and oblong proportions of her miniature houses recall the domiciles of Whoville, while her playfully macabre faces would fit in alongside the colorful characters of Beetlejuice and Corpse Bride. Dark, yet whimsical designs such as these have garnered two studio spaces and the accolades of clients who call McIntyre "a fantastic artist and a wonderful communicator." Her miscellany of life experiences both bitter and sweet, including losing both of her parents, have shaped her artistic outlook. She named one of her studios after her father's two college nicknames and surrounds her porcelain houses with flowers in honor of her flora-adoring mother. "I seem to think in 3-D," she muses, "and these sculptures are a rewarding way for me to conquer the limitations that illustrating on a flat page holds for me." Not content to just create her own magnum opuses, Robilee educates burgeoning artists with loving instruction that invites them to answer the insistent beeper pages of their own creativity.