Education & Classes in White Oak

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.

Students in 60- to 90-minute classes at the Cheesy Gourmet learn how to make bagel-ready spreads, sliceable block cheeses, and crumbly feta using nothing but cheesecloth and a splash of milk. Participants can snack on provided cheese and crackers or sip wine they brought themselves as they watch Chef Dan demonstrate techniques inside a quaint kitchen painted robin’s-egg blue. After the class, guests leave with enough cheesecloth to make their own cheeses or dairy-based paper-maché art projects at home.

Sushi Bears rolls vegetarian and traditional sushi rolls under the direction of Chef Dan, whose passion for healthful eats led him to open his stand at Findlay Market, where he holds weekly sushi-making classes. Sushi Bears’ menu includes smoked-salmon philly rolls and tempura-fried sushi. Chef Dan also hosts sushi-rolling parties in private homes.

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.

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.

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.