We, as a society, feel the need to draw imaginary lines to separate ourselves whether it’s the line between color of our skin, our religion differences, our political beliefs, or the status of our class. As much as I wish there wasn’t a defining line between high class and the educated vs. low class and uneducated, there is. In Mike Rose’s narrative essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” he describes his mother’s lack of education and her hard labor work which is the quote on quote the blue collar working class. In the story he tells us how he and his father would sit and wait at the restaurant his mother worked at. How is mother would whirl around the restaurant “pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the food” (9) calculating each step she took. “She walked full tilt through the room with plates stretching up her left arm and two cups of coffee somehow cradled in her right hand. She stood at a table or booth and removed a plate for this person, another for that person, then another, remembering who had the hamburger, who had the fried shrimp, almost always getting it right.” (10) He described his mother’s calculated steps and how she had to modify her behavior for the needs and wants of each guest and table. He states that he couldn’t put it in words when he was growing up, but that he observed in his …show more content…
However, in the restaurant I currently work at and have been working at going on six years, I work with handful of college graduates. These college graduates who have a diploma at home hanging on their wall still choose to work as blue-collar status. The reason being that there are not many other options of employment that you can work a six-hour shift and walk out of that shift with a hundred dollars in your pocket. “Like anyone who is effective at physical work, my mother learned to work smart, as she put it, to make every move count”
In the article, “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose, he begins with an anecdote of his mother working her blue-collar job at a diner as a waitress. Rose vividly describes her common day that is packed with a constant array of tedious tasks she has to accomplish to make her living. The authors goal appears to be making the reader appreciate the hard work of blue-collar workers because society places a stereotype on them as being less intelligent than someone with more schooling or even a white-collar job: “Our cultural iconography promotes the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps, but no brightness behind the eye, no inmate that links hand and brain” (282). I agree with Rose’s conclusion that if we continue to place a stigma on
Blue Collar workers today are looked down upon by most of society. People think that if you have a blue collar job you aren’t smart and not successful. But in my opinion, blue collar workers are the backbone of our society, and deserve the same amount of respect as white collar workers. “Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose” explains how blue collar workers are very smart and use a lot of brainpower to get their jobs done. Both his Uncle and mother were blue collar workers and that’s where he got his inspiration to stand up for blue collar workers around the world. He gives us examples of how his own family members were blue collar workers and how they were smart and how they excelled at their jobs. He uses his own experiences to show us that blue collar workers are in fact smart, able to adapt to many different situations, and deserve respect.
“…they have generally focused on the values such workers exhibit rather than on the thought their work requires” (Rose 276). Being a person that works those jobs isn’t easy work. I remember when I was young my Great Grandpa worked as a machine operator for any kind of road commission work. He had to be very skilled to work all of the machines. In my opinion, in certain jobs, you can learn more by doing, than by being taught in a classroom. Yes, a doctor needs to go to medical school and other jobs like that. But some jobs will teach you more by doing them, then by learning how to do it. Jobs like these are important because you’ll needs these skills eventually. I’m glad that I was, not forced, but pushed, to work a ‘blue collar’ job before and during
Growing up in The United States, people are given this idea of an American Dream. Almost every child is raised to believe they can become and do anything they want to do, if one works hard enough. However, a majority of people believe that there is a separation of class in American society. Gregory Mantsios author of “Class in America-2009” believes that Americans do not exchange thoughts about class division, although most of people are placed in their own set cluster of wealth. Also political officials are trying to get followers by trying to try to appeal to the bulk of the population, or the middle class, in order to get more supporters. An interesting myth that Mantsios makes in his essay is how Americans don’t have equal opportunities.
A big disadvantage that the lower class has compared to the wealthy is a lack of quality education. While serving as a waitress, Ehrenriech learned about many different people. Some of these co-workers were immigrants who had recently come to this country. “I learn that he [George] is not paid by Jerry’s but the ‘agent’ who shipped him over--$5 an hour, with the agent getting the dollar or so difference between that and what Jerry’s pays dishwashers”(38). Their contracts lacked any benefits, and they were paid below minimum wage. People, like George, cannot read their contracts before they sign because they don’t understand the language. The critic would argue, “…They are baffled at the idea of fighting the class struggle of which…Ehrenriech appears to be the only person complaining about the situation…” In Georg...
In his essay “Land of Opportunity” James W. Loewen details the ignorance that most American students have towards class structure. He bemoans the fact that most textbooks completely ignore the issue of class, and when it does it is usually only mentions middle class in order to make the point that America is a “middle class country. This is particularly grievous to Loewen because he believes, “Social class is probably the single most important variable in society. From womb to tomb, it correlates with almost all other social characteristics of people that we can measure.” Loewen simply believes that social class usually determine the paths that a person will take in life. (Loewen 203)
To be intelligent means to be able to apply what we learned in school and use what we learned in our everyday life to achieve a goals that is sit or one that we are accomplishing without knowing. Many people think that a person is intelligent because they went to a university, got a degree, and have a good paying job, so they must be smart and know everything however thats not always true. If we would ask a teacher or professor the chances of them knowing how to fix a car are slim. So why do we think teachers are so intelligent? We think teachers are intelligent because they know everything about their subjects, know how to teach it and know how to apply their knowledge to their everyday lives.
Gregory Mantsios advocates more on the struggle to proceed from one class to another in his essay-“Class in America”. Mantsios states that, “Class standing has a significant impact on our chances for survival....
A famous quote by Martin Luther King states “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” The two articles “Hidden Intellectualism” and “Blue Collar Brilliance” both emphasis the author's opinion on the qualifications and measurements of someone's intelligence. “Hidden Intellectualism” focuses on students or younger people who have trouble with academic work because, they are not interested in the topic. Today, in schools students are taught academic skills that are not very interesting, the author mentions this is why children are not motivated in schools. The main viewpoint of this article is that schools need to encourage students
Some people may believe that education all over the United States is equal. These people also believe that all students no matter their location, socioeconomic status, and race have the same access and quality of education, but ultimately they are wrong. Throughout history, there has been a huge educational disparity between the wealthy and marginalized communities. The academic essay “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work” by Jean Anyon, an American critical thinker and researcher in education, conveys that depending on the different economic backgrounds students have, they will be taught in a specific way. He reveals that the lower economic background a child has then the lower quality their education will be and the higher their economic background is the higher quality their education is. Anyon’s theory of a social ladder is extremely useful because it sheds light on the
The working class stays working and the middle class stays being middle. Author Nick Tingle, wrote “The vexation of class”, he argues that the working class and the middle class are separated educationally based on culture and the commonplace. Tingle uses his own personal experiences and Ethos, to effectively prove his point about the difference in class based on culture ; although, Tingle also falls short by adding unnecessary information throughout the article that weakens his belief entirely.
Over the past years, getting a college degree has been the pathway to a settled career. College has been a reason for people to carry on after high school. Now that tuition has been raised, getting a degree seems to drain students with more loans and could be in debt. College has been raised to the point where people rather start working at a minimum wage than continuing with school. Working in a part-time job would be an easier choice rather than pursuing a degree.
Social and economic class is something we as Americans like to push into the back of our minds. Sometimes recognizing our class either socially or economically can almost be crippling. When individuals recognize class, limitations and judgment confront us. Instead, we should know it is important to recognize our class, but not let it define and limit us. In the essay, “Class in America”, Gregory Mantsios, founder and director of the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education at the School of Professional Studies, brings to light the fact that Americans don’t talk about class and class mobility. He describes the classes in extremes, mainly focusing on the very sharp divide between the extremely wealthy and extremely poor. In contrast, George
When coming into terms with what a college degree means is simply a certification. In basic terms, a degree is simply a piece of paper certifying you met a certain level of scholastic achievement, but what happens in the class room doesn’t always translate into the real world. College degrees don’t always guarantee a good salary or guarantee a job. There are many high paying degrees, but for every high paying degree, there are two low paying degrees. There are also degrees that have a limited market. Simply having a college degree doesn’t guarantee one will get the job, nor should it. Employees need to bring skills to the table, as well as the ability to continue learning, growing, and providing value for their employer(s). I am not saying people who choose low paying degrees aren’t successful, not even. Many people choose degrees based on what makes them content,...
In an education journal, Anyon (“Social”) provides the reader with the concept that there are four different types of schools, working class schools, middle-class schools, affluent professional schools, and executive elite schools, after observing five schools. The working class schools are made up of parents with blue-collar jobs, with less than a third of the fathers being skilled, and the majority of them being semiskilled or unskilled. “Approximately 15 percent of the fathers were unemployed… approximately 15 percent of the families in each school are at or below the federal ‘poverty’ level…the incomes of the majority of the families…are typical of 38.6 percent of the families in the United States” (Anyon, “Social”). In a more recent study conducted by Anyon (“What”, 69), she states that,