Mike Rose grew up in a middle-class, blue collar family. He was not the best student until he was pushed by a teacher during his primary schooling. In college he studied humanities and social/ psychological sciences. Later on, he attended graduate school to study education and cognitive psychology. Although he didn 't have the formal education he has now, Rose is able to analyze his memories of his mother and how she learned the same skills he studied in school, in her work place. Growing up in a blue-collar household, Rose is able to explain what its like to work in that field based off first hand observations.
Rose’s central argument lies on the widespread social debate about blue-collar workers versus white-collar workers. Rose believes that blue-collar work has slowly become under valued in society from an educational standpoint. Rose states that intelligence throughout history has always be based off the amount of formal education a person has received. He believes that valuable intelligence can come from the hands-on approach that blue-collar work can bring. He is in a position that of a white-collar worker who was brought up in a blue-collar family, and is attempting expose the reality of the knowledge that is obtained through working blue-collar jobs. He uses narratives and images to convey his standpoint. The narratives that he uses are the stores of his family members who worked blue-collar jobs. By doing this he is able to creative leverage for his argument. The images he uses show his family members in their prospective fields, and show how they dress and how a typical day at the job went.
Rose uses the stories of his mother, who worked as a waitress, and his uncle who worked as a factory worker. Even though R...
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...new how to make his workers happy and efficient.
Rose began to study how blur collar workers such has his mom and uncle thought. and catalogued the mental demands of different types of blur collar jobs. He documents the skills developed and knowledge gained by blue-collar workers to better justify his argument of why blue-collar work shouldn 't be undervalued. In conclusion, Rose mentions that we as a society shouldn 't measure a persons intelligence based of the amount of formal schooling they 've received, and that if we continue to undervalue everyday work efforts by simply saying you cant learn by doing we a setting a negative example for the future. Rose affirms that intelligence cannot be measured by how much you learn in a classroom setting, because everyone in every profession can learn the cognitive skills needed to thrive in their prospective workforce.
He claims to relate his mother’s quick and effective decisions, customer interactions, memorisation and problem solving, and his uncle, Joe’s, learning, planning and management skills to that of a white-collar worker. “Preposterous”, some might argue. “You cannot possibly compare waiters and conductors with boffins.” However, the dichotomy between the blue-collars and white-collars are subtle. Regardless of Rose’s claim that blue-collar workers are more efficient and carry a broader skill set, there exists no comparison between the two categories. Granted, the social biases about one’s occupation are irrational; however, blue-collars cannot substitute white-collar workers merely because of their “diverse intelligence”. Given Rose’s experiences, he has colluded blue-collar intelligence with white-collar intelligence. Id Est, he believes that social discrimination against blue-collar workers is fallacious from his observations; thus, their skills are the analogous to white-collar workers. In sum, blue-collar workers are intelligent and important in their respective and applicable fields, and white-collars in theirs’; drawing comparisons between them are like comparing apples and
Rose begins his article with his first rhetorical strategy of storytelling and description to describe his mother and uncle’s work environments and the hardship they go through. As a child, he would go to his mother’s work to watch her, “Rosie took customers’ orders, pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the food. 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.” (Rose 1) Another example that we see Rose’s use of storytelling is when he was brought to his uncle’s factory. “Joe took me on a tour of the factory. The floor was loud—in some places deafening—and when I turned a corner or opened a door, the smell of chemicals knocked my head back. The work was repetitive and taxing, and the pace was inhumane.” (Rose 3) He uses these moments to relate to you and show you the hardship they go through in their workforce. Rose wants his audience to understand that blue-collar workers, even though they don’t have a proper education for their trade, that have the hands on experience to gain the proper knowledge they need to know to successfully complete their job. He’s showing the type of environment they work in and the chaos that’s
Rose took that into consideration when presenting his article. He included 2 significant photographs of his family members at work. The image of his mother evoked a strong sense of accomplishment, and a happy productive mother that many can relate to. Captioned as “Rosie solved technical problems and human problems on the fly” (Rose 273). This image, along with the description in the preceding paragraph, provides the reader with a heart filled example of a brilliant mother at work. A job which does not require schooling, is referred to as a Blue-Collar position. Needless to say, a waitress job, such as that of Rosie’s, is indeed a Blue-Collar occupation. Furthermore, Rosie’s content features, and the ability to hold many cups in one hand, as seen in the image, adheres towards the admiration that Rose has on blue-collar workers. “I’m struck by the thinking-in-motion that some works require, by all the mental activity that can be involved in simply getting from one place to another” (Rose279). Rose’s admiration towards blue-collar workers allows his argument to become credible in the reader’s
He contributes personal examples and results of clinical tests that argue the misconception of unintelligent blue-collar workers. Rose witnessed the skill and intellect his mother, Rose Meraglio Rose or “Rosie” supplied in order to provide for her family. Especially when Rosie was working in the 50’s of crowded family restaurants, he saw her struggle. Rose observed his mother mastering memory skills to deliver the correct orders and maneuver around her workplace in the most efficient ways. Rosie had to balance many problems on her shoulders, all of which required both mental and physical fortitude. Nonetheless, he still disagrees with the assumption that “Intelligence is closely associated with formal education” (281). Although, this assumption has been implemented throughout history, there are plenty of more social interaction, planning, and problem solving that blue-collars are not credited for. For example, Rose disputes this misconception with the personal study of his uncle, Joe Meraglio. Joe began his journey as a blue-collar after dropping out of the ninth grade to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Although he did not receive what most might call a formal education, he eventually joined the Navy
In Rose 's essay he gives personal examples of his own life, in this case it’s his mother who works in a diner. “I couldn 't put into words when I was growing up, but what I
Is it better to be book smart or street smart? Is it better to be happy and stable or unhappy and ‘rich’? Blue-collar jobs require you to learn skills that college cannot teach you; Rose points this out in his essay, stating: “It was like schooling, where you’re constantly learning” (277). In the essay “Blue Collar Brilliance” written by Mike Rose, he talks about how his mother worked as a waitress and how his uncle Joe dropped out of high school, eventually got a job working on the assembly line for General Motors and was then moved up to supervisor of the paint and body section. Rose suggests that intelligence is not represented by the amount of schooling someone has or the type of job they work. In this essay I will be explaining why Rose
The World of Psychology. (2002). A Pearson Education Company. Boston, MA: Samuel Wood & Ellen Green Wood p. 593
Mike Rose’s article “Blue-Collar Brilliance” talks about people judging other people’s intelligence based on their jobs. Mike Rose explains in his article that people with blue collar jobs are just as intelligent as people with white collar jobs because they both use critical thinking and multi task while they are working. The standard of their jobs might be different because of their different ways of learning. People who are considered professionals or white collared individuals learn by studying or reading reports where blue collared individuals learn by performing a task. They learn faster ways to perform the task after they have done it multiple times. I believe that Rose’s thinking is very effective as it tells us that we should not judge
In “ Blue Collar Brilliance” Mike Rose argues that intelligences can’t be measured by the education we received in school but how we learn them in our everyday lives. He talks about his life growing up and watching his mother waitressing at a restaurant. He described her orders perfectly by who got what, how long each dish takes to make, and how she could read her customers. He also talks about his uncles working at the General Motors factory and showed the amount of intelligence that was need to work at the factory. Rose goes on talking about the different types of blue-collar and how he came up with the idea that a person has skills that takes a lot of mind power to achieve.
In the essays, Two Year Are Better than Four by Liz Addison, and Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose respectively, take two different approaches to learning. Addison firmly believes in the traditional method by advocating community college is the better choice for students to experience higher education. Addison also asserts community colleges offer the same level of education compared to four universities. She also emphasized in her writing the value of the experience is much more personal due to the smaller classes in community college. On the other hand, Mike Rose observes that higher education does not define a person’s intelligence. Rose believes that society plays a big part in the judgmental view towards people without degrees. Yet the same society fail to recognize that blue collar jobs such as plumbers and waitresses require specific kinds of intelligence just like Rose’s mother Rosie, whom he described as an example of blue collar brilliance. Even though Addison and Rose take
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
Rose questions the reasons why the two worlds are so different. During his school and after a traumatic moment in life at the death of his father, a new teacher, Mr. MacFarland begins teaching him. Through Roses lessons with Mr. MacFarland, Rose learns how to want to learn and to want to go achieve more. With this new
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Throughout the entire article, “Blue Collar Brilliance” the author Mike Rose is trying to show the real fact of Blue Collar jobs by describing his mother work as a waitress and his uncle as a factory worker who made his way up to manager. By giving evidence, he is also trying to open the readers eye that Blue Collar workers are in a same intelligence skill as other high-level workers though they do not have four years degrees. The author, Mike Rose, passed his childhood by watching his mom as waiting on booths and table with skillfully to assemble the skill to do work efficiently. He also watched out all other workers and interested by their adaption to coexist with each other. He got the chance as a first person to attend college in his family,
In the autobiography Lives on the Boundary, Mike Rose tells his story, in his perspective, on what he has gone through with education. During his grade school years, Rose began to grow an interest in particular subjects such as chemistry and English. Around his high school years, he found interest only in his class in English with his professor, Mr. MacFarland. Soon enough, Rose begins to grow an interest in English when he began attending Loyola University; however, he did not breeze through his rigorous courses in college. He has seen people emotionally break down and struggle immensely to get by along his way of becoming a professor at UCLA. Ultimately, however, with all of these things Rose sees throughout his life, he has had many self-actualizations