Peter Roskowinski will show students how to make great Italian meals while a language teacher makes the experience bilingual. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
School seems less of a drag when you substitute reading, writing and arithmetic with cooking, wine making and learning Italian, doesn’t it?
That’s one benefit of being an adult student in the greater Red Bank area: all the fun classes at Red Bank Regional Adult School, which opens its fall semester next week. Registration is underway.
One of the highly anticipated new classes is a traveler’s dream called “Mangia—Speak and Eat Italian.” While restaurateur and former RBR Board of Education member Peter Roskowinski teaches how to cook Italian, a linguist will be teaching how to speak it. Roskowinski said he’ll his students how to whip up an authentic Italian dinner, mostly from scratch, yet quick and easy. In the meantime, his partner, Amy Wood, will translate English terms into Italian.
“It will be a total encompassing class with the Italian language,” Roskowinski said. “And everybody eats, so everybody has something in common. It should be a lot of fun.”
Another new class in this year’s program is also for something people have in common — back pain. RBR teacher Dorianne Murray will lead “Back In Action,” a hybrid of dance and exercises for people with back problems. She said she introduced the class this year after realizing a trend over at Work Out World, a gym where also teaches.
“When people come in, the big complaint is predominately back pain,” Murray said. “The goal here is to give participants tools needed to manage their back pain.”
Murray thinks because backaches are such a prevalent malady among the general public, that the class will likely stay in the curriculum. She also teaches a popular dance class that fuses Latin, hip-hop, disco and others designed to be an alternative to hitting the gym.
“Not everyone’s looking to go to the gym and get on a treadmill, so this is an hour of really upbeat fun. And it’s a good workout,” she said.
For something less active, but still fun, there’s another adult school staple that director of programs, Carol Torre, said is one of the most popular: wine making. Torre has a simple gauge for its popularity.
“The same people pretty much take that class over and over again,” she said.
Despite nationwide belt-tightening, Torre said the adult school’s popularity has remained steady. The fall semester usually draws between 200 and 300 people, while spring typically attracts between 400 and 500. She says she doesn’t know what this season is going to bring, but thinks the classes offered are enough to keep people enticed.
Class starts are scattered, but most begin next week and usually take place from 6p to 9p on Monday and Tuesday nights through December.
For more information or to register, go to the adult school website or call Carol Torre at 732.842.8000, ext. 42.
