Cosmetology class offers prisoners skills, hope
classes have been moved to larger rooms within the facility, with a goal of opening up the course to 50 inmates, Keast said. FORWARD THINKING
Five days a week, two classes of six students each meet for six hours to study, take quizzes and tests, and practice hair styling, manicures and other cosmetological procedures.
Instructor Dorothy Muhammed, better known to her students as “Ms. Dee,” leads the course, which is offered in partnership with Expertise Cosmetology Institute.
Class on this day took place in a small, square room. Around the room are signs of encouragement. “Investment in knowledge pays the best interest” reads the top of the white board that fills much of one wall, and a clock above the workstations bears the words “a new path.”
The students cracked open their textbooks, broke out flash cards and studied their notes to prepare for the day’s exam, one of 32 they will take over the course of the 1,600hour class, Muhammed said.
During the lesson, the women responded politely, answering Ms. Dee’s questions with a “Yes ma’am” or a “No ma’am.”
They practiced the “French twist” on mannequin heads bearing names such as “Conchita” and “Renata,” — each bearing a name scrawled in marker by the inmates.
There’s more to the curriculum than cuticles and cute styles; Ms. Dee also teaches the 12 women about anatomy and physiology.
When they complete the program, Muhammed said, the students can work within the cosmetology field, but also could use the course, which teaches the basics of anatomy and physiology, as a foundation for further studies that could lead to a career as a medical assistant.
After covering the circulatory system and reviewing various veins and arteries, she led the class in bits of Al Green’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart.”
“Tell me,” Ms. Dee sang, “how can you mend a broken heart?”
The lessons learned in the cosmetology class help with some of that mending. ‘WE AREN’T THROWAWAYS’
“This is more than lipstick and curling irons,” Michelle Brown said. “It’s for inmates to learn a trade so that when we go out, we have something that we can do.”
Brown, eligible for parole in March, is serving a sentence for grand larceny. The class, she said, is a way to avoid the routine many inmates fall into once they are released.
“We get out there and we wind up working jobs that don’t pay the bills and then fall back on old behaviors to make sure our that our rent is paid because we don’t have any other way to do it,” Brown said.
“I’ve done everything from fast food to clerical work,” she said. “Everything. Nobody wants to hire a felon … Why hire us when they can hire someone without a record who hasn’t been convicted of grand larceny?”
The work she puts into the class now behind bars will clear a path for opportunities on the outside, Brown said.
Knowing that something positive awaits her once she has served her time gives Brown hope for not only herself but also her children.
“We aren’t throwaways, you know?” Brown said, tears in her eyes. “We can contribute stuff to society too.”
She added, “We did something bad, but we’re learning from what we did. I have four daughters. I don’t ever want them ever to go in my footsteps. Not the footsteps I came here in, the ones I leave in.”
As the class continued, Muhammed reminded the women why they were there: the prospect of a different life on the outside, one with a new future.
“This is your time now, OK?” she said, pointing to the clock above the classroom. “This is a new path.”