The transformation of professional training schools has begun and bears the signature of the PROUD TO BE project: a project with a psycho-socio-pedagogical and humanistic mission, which aims to accompany Professional Training Centres and their social actors towards a dimension of renewed self-esteem and professional pride.
The aim is to overturn the current paradigms that block the evolution of the well-being professions and to establish an integrated communication between the academic, institutional and professional training worlds at all levels. Teachers, managers, students, professionals, companies, institutions must be involved in the creation of a New Professional Vanguard.
Unfortunately, the world of Beauty has been subjected to a destructive contradiction for years. While on the one hand it represents an icon of Made in Italy throughout the world and has been the fastest-growing sector economically for over a century; and on the other hand, it is perceived as the “repository of society’s waste“. A distorted view of reality that prevents young people from seizing the real opportunities for personal and professional growth and prosperity that the beauty sector offers.
This negative approach to the self-esteem of young people who choose the profession of a beauty and wellness operator gave me the need to create a project of pride and awareness, which I called PROUD TO BE, based on values linked to strengthening of the professional identity.
The primary objective of PROUD TO BE is to create a LICEO DELLA BELLEZZA, a Beauty High School, that can provide access to higher education and that is able to transfer, not only technical skills but also humanistic ones, through teaching methods that bring together Knowledge, Knowing How to Be, Knowing How to Do and Knowing How to Give, restoring dignity to the students.
There are many initiatives to take this forward, both structurally and didactically. I have started from a close collaboration with the school managers of the CFP’s, the Professional Training Schools, made up of periodic meetings that also involve the students and the teaching staff, in order to restructure the school system and equip it with new efficient and effective tools, as well as actions aimed towards guidance counsellors of the middle schools, the institutions, and the companies that host students currently undertaking training courses.
With the help of a Life Epigenetics Research Group made up of scientists, university professors and experts in the field, we have developed a number of interventions in the school space and in the tools supporting teaching.
The training spaces have been rethought as places of Culture, Art and Wellbeing where Beauty and Comfort become a daily experience for students and teachers. The idea is to create a 360° epigenetic school structure where every space is an integrated and integral part of education.
A theatre classroom was designed, changing the layout of the desks and structuring them as an open herringbone amphitheatre, to encourage greater involvement of each pupil in the teaching process. The walls of the classroom were covered with images evocative of creative processes and works of art to stimulate creativity and curiosity. We have included a Harmonic Totem that through vibrations and 432Hz music encourages concentration and memory.
This is how the classroom becomes an educational tool for developing technical, artistic and sensory skills.
In order to facilitate learning, didactic tools such as the skin model, Munsell’s 100 colours test, Munsell’s colour space model and some technologies have been included to amplify the deepening of basic knowledge.
An epigenetic dress code has been devised, with special uniforms designed with organic materials and colours and ergonomic footwear designed by a Postural Ergonomist to ensure maximum comfort for beauty workers by preventing disorders of the muscular-skeletal system linked to poor posture.
Innovative educational tools include a series of publications with Editoriale Delfino, starting with the book “La Cosmetica Umanistica” (Humanistic Cosmetics) by Giannantonio Negretti and continuing on a cultural journey of in-depth scientific and humanistic study, investigating the Sense of Beauty through the voices of the sector’s greatest experts. The books are printed on natural paper made with raw materials from forests managed according to the principles of the two main standards: forest management and chain of custody. The series will also include CDs, posters and art prints.
A YouTube channel has been created: PBC Professional Beauty Channel to give voice to the science behind cosmetics. A veritable library of professional videos where scientists, researchers and university professors talk in different formats about their subjects of expertise. The protagonists of the many videos include respected personas, such as Cosmetologist Umberto Borellini, Dermatologist Gezzi, Postural Ergonomist Pacini, Architect Alfredo Bigogno, Naming Specialist Maurizio Sangineto, Professor Rizzi, one of the world’s greatest experts on colour and light, and Giannantonio Negretti, a pioneer of Innovative Cosmetics.
STAY TUNED! The revolution has begun…
