Last month my parents, Ryan and DeAnnalyn TEAL came to teach a class at my school. Instead of doing a hands on class they opted for something different. Most beauty school student's don't know very much about the history of hair dressing. I talked my dad into teaching his history class to Taylor Andrews. He wasn't sure if it was the best way to go with the class but I knew it was. He now had the very difficult task of condensing a 2 day class into 90 minutes, while keeping the attention of 100 beauty school students. I asked many of the students if they would enjoy a history class. They all agreed that it was much needed and they really liked the idea of my dad teaching them one. I was excited to see the class and see the reaction of my classmates.
My dad had to teach the class twice. Once for the night school students, then again the next day for the day school students. It was going to change their lives to learn the history of hairdressing. It's very important that people know where they come from and if they students didn't know where hairdressing came from they wouldn't be able to respect the industry like people who knew about it.
The 1st class was a night. I didn't know all the student because I'd only attended night school a few times. My dad got all set up then asked me to introduce them to the students. I got up on stage and told the students a little about my parents then turned the stage over my dad. My mom sat in the audience taking notes to make the class better.
The nigh school students were great. The class started off with my dad asking a series of questions. It was is way of letting the class know what they didn't know. It was shocking to see that so many of the students I went to school with didn't know who some of the greatest hair heros were. They sat though the class and took notes. They all really seemed to enjoy it. They came up after the class to tell my dad how much they learned from the class and how they wanted him to come back and teach the rest of the history class to them. It was a great feeling knowing that the class was getting great responses from everyone.
The day school class was a lot bigger than the night school. It was the West Jordan school and the Orem school all cramped into the same small room. I think because the class size was so big it was easy for people to get off track or get distracted by the person sitting in front of them texting. Students don't quite understand that even though you are putting your phone under the table we can still see it. You aren't hiding anything. I could tell who was actually enjoying the class and wanted to be there to learn and who was just there because they had to be. The girl sitting in the back row listening to Linkin Park while my dad was teaching was one of those people who was only there because she had to be. My dad did call her out in front of the entire class in a very polite manner but personally I think if you don't want to be in the class don't come.
Over all I think the class was a huge success. Students took away from it what they wanted. If they went in to lear about hairdressing then they came out filled with so much information. If they didn't care, then they didn't learn anything. If you want to be successful in the industry then you must learn the fact and history about it. You can't just pretend like it's not your fault that you didn't know. You have to get out there and learn, because you don't know what you know.
My dad teaching!
For more information about the history of hairdressing I recommend that you check out the following:
A series of films directed by Vivian McKender titled I'm not just a Hairdresser
I'm sorry I kept you waiting Madam By Vidal Sassoon
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