I third the Microplane rec. That thing makes me want to grate cheese all day.
Gildwulf -
here's a good EDF thread discussing cooking knives.
I'm not a professional chef by any stretch, so take my recs with a grain of salt. But I really like my Shun Santoku (I use it as an all purpose chef's knife) and the 3.5" Wusthof paring knife SamIAm recs in the linked thread I picked up and must say it is pretty awesome.
But my gut says that for your class, go with some cheapo Dexter-Russell knives - they're great knives and you'll probably have access to sharpeners (which is my only issue with the knives, they lose their edge pretty quickly, well that and weighting cause it's a plastic handle).
SamIAm - I randomly picked up those Oxo tongs at Target a while ago and I am happy with them.
-Al