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An analysis of blue-collar brilliance, a story by mike rose
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Blue collar brilliance mike rose claim
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Kaili Cannon
5002394158
16 September 2015
Learning Everywhere
Mike Rose wrote “Blue Collar Brilliance” to showcase the underlying and previously unheard of intelligence of blue-collar workers that is often ignored by scholars because such workers are not commonly seen as conventionally intelligent. Rose challenges the idea that intelligence is solely based on the amount of schooling completed, and instead explains that blue-collar jobs require more intelligence than most would think. Using personal examples and various comparisons, Rose describes the true value of working blue-collar jobs. The arguments presented in the essay parallel the saying “It’s more than meets the eye.”
As Mike Rose grew up, he studied his mother and
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his uncle as they worked at a local diner and the General Motors assembly floor, respectively. By studying his mother, Rose learned to appreciate blue-blue collar jobs and all the work that goes into them. Rose claimed his mother “learned to work smart,” allowing her to know the ins and outs of the job, while also finding the easiest way to complete all tasks presented: physical and mental. On the assembly floor, Rose’s uncle said it “provided what school did not…a place where you’re constantly learning.” He said his uncle “learned the most efficient way to use his body by acquiring a set of routines that were quick and preserved energy.” In both cases, his mother and his uncle acquired news skills to more effectively do their jobs, both physical and intellectual. Rose proved by example that there is a limitless amount of things a person can learn to improve their efficiency at work. Rose used personal experience and comparisons throughout his essay to disprove the assumption that “work requiring less schooling requires less intelligence.” Describing the hard work his mother did in the diner and observing the many skills she had obtained: the lingo, quickness, and social interaction, and listing the skills his uncle had to learn on the shop floor: being cool under pressure, the “technological and social dynamics of the shop floor”, and problem solving, allowed Rose to qualify his argument with personal experience. By immediately starting his essay with a close connection to the problem that common workers face and later describing his formal education experience, Rose established an ethos-driven connection to blue-collar workers and the people around them. Creating this connection allows the audience to take Rose’s opinion more seriously. Many people of higher education have easily overlooked Rose’s argument in the past, but his substantial evidence provided stable ground for the argument to stand, and Rose’s educational background brought it merit. While identifying the faults of previous scholars when studying the working class, the author alluded that the American “cultural iconography” is synonymous to Rosie the Riveter.
This is an important comparison, as it shows Rose’s view on how scholars generally think of the American working class. “Our cultural iconography promotes the muscled arm, sleeve rolled tight against biceps, but no brightness behind the eye, no image that links hand and brain.” Here, Rose is trying to explain the fault that other scholars have made when analyzing and observing blue-collar workers. They analyze them as being physically strong, they consider them the backbone of the American people, but what most don’t realize is, there actually is a brightness behind the eye. A hidden intelligence that does link the hand to the brain, allowing these workers to possess a different kind of intelligence. The author states that on the shop floor, his uncle “lacked formal knowledge of how the machines under his supervision worked, but he had direct experience with them, hands-on knowledge,” and later generalizes this thought to that of other blue-collar jobs as well, “…the worker becomes attuned to aspects of the environment, a training or disciplining of perception that both enhances knowledge and informs perception.” Formal education is not the only way to learn. All jobs requiring a sort of “training”. From retail jobs, learning how to fold clothes and solve customer problems, to construction work, …show more content…
measuring wooden beams, drilling, and laying concrete, all jobs have different knowledge that’s required; that has to be learned through experience. Education is the formal process by which society conveys its collected knowledge, skills, customs and values from one generation to another.
Rose rejected the idea that education can only be learned through schooling and suggested that education can happen in the workplace. By mentioning the social and mental skills his mother obtained working at the diner and the advanced problem solving skills his uncle obtained on the shop floor, the author shows that blue-collar workers are constantly learning every day on the job. In the conclusion of the essay, Rose says “To acknowledge a broader range of intellectual capacity is to take seriously the concept of cognitive variability.” By acknowledging that knowledge isn’t just achieved through higher level schooling, formal education, or limited to scholars and students, the world is able to appreciate blue-collar workers and understand that the “formal” intelligence is not the only type of intelligence people of this world have to offer. To offer the full range of educational opportunities to all social classes, scholars and intellectuals must acknowledge “everyday cognition,” such as: using memory strategies to take order in a diner, managing the flow of customer/employee satisfaction, or developing new strategies to make work more effective, which rejects the normal “Generalizations about intelligence, work, and social class [that] deeply affect our assumptions about ourselves and each
other…” Rose’s personal experience fueled argument encompasses the learning objective of intellectual breadth and lifelong learning. Specifically speaking about the unobserved intellectual breadth and lifelong learning of blue-collar workers, allows the audience to relate to real world experiences and better understand the unappreciated learning and knowledge that blue-collar workers acquire. For hundreds of years, blue-collar workers have been the essential backbone for the American working class, and for hundreds of years, blue-collar workers have only been seen as physical entities. Rose successfully challenges that assumption, and proves that intellectual breadth and lifelong learning is actually extremely easy to obtain no matter what type of future students, and others, choose for themselves.
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
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.
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
His anecdotes presented in the article are appropriate in terms of his subject and claims. The author responds back to the naysayers by saying that people only look at the test scores earned in school, but not the actual talent. He says, “Our culture- in Cartesian fashion- separates the body from the mind, so that, for example we assume that the use of tool does not involve abstraction. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and number on IQ tests. And we employ social biases pertaining to a person’s place on the occupational ladder” (279). The author says that instead of looking at people’s talent we judge them by their grades in school or their IQ score, and we also employ them based on these numbers. People learn more each time they perform a task. He talks about blue collared individuals developing multi-tasking and creativity skills as they perform the task they are asked to
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.
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
He explains how he observed different types of blue- collar and service workers in action and that concludes that each of them has a skill that takes a lot of mind power to master. “To gain a sense of how knowledge and skill develop, I observed experts as well as novices… I tried to fashion what I called ‘cognitive biographies’ of blue-collar workers” (Rose, 278). For example, verbal and math skills are valued. As a blue-collar worker, when carpenter builds a cabinet he uses those skills for measuring but these skills are not recognized. " “To acknowledge a broader range of intellectual capacity is to take seriously the concept of cognitive variability to appreciate in all the Rosies and Joes the thought that drives their accomplishments and defines who they are. This is a model of the mind that is worthy of
... to the educated mechanic or even the intelligent laborer it is not so when applied to the mentally sluggish". Thus, one can safely assume that there was little respect afforded to the worker in such a scientifically managed factory. Not only were the immigrants thought of as unintelligent, but there was also little value placed upon the individual experience that each might have brought to the task.
Traditional theories of intelligence do not account for the ambiguity of classes such as philosophy or for the wide range of interests a child can have. For example, contemporary theories such as Sternberg’s Theory of Intelligence and Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences both account for more than the general intelligence accounted for in traditional intelligence theories. According to Robert Sternberg’s Successful (Triarchic) Theory of Intelligence, are Hector’s difficulties in philosophy indicative of future difficulties in the business world? According to Sternberg’s Theory of Intelligence, Hector’s difficulty in philosophy will not negatively affect his future. Sternberg would instead focus on elements of successful intelligence like Hector’s involvement and contribution as an individual, as opposed to relying on intelligence measured by tests.
The report of Robert Reich: “Why the Rich are getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer,” is an eye opener and a warning for society regarding unemployment that it will be facing and is currently facing due to a lack of technology and education. It clearly articulates that the jobs of routine producers and in-person servers have vanished totally as modern techniques have replaced them. The author has stated that the only people whose jobs are on the rise are symbol analysts. As stated in the report, symbol analysts are the real problem solvers. Their skills are highly in demand worldwide because they are the ones who first analyze the problem and then solve it. The Hart Report, on the other hand, also states the same problem of unemployment and the global recession which has left employers focusing on employees not only with specialists’ skills but also a “broader range of skills and knowledge” (page 6-7). The Hart Report clearly reflects what the needs of contemporary employers are, but the question is whether it is the universities or the students themselves who fail to cope with the requirements of the contemporary world which is filled with technological advancement and critical thinking. The Texas Work Source has also played an important role in examining what is actually missing in today’s generation and the reasons behind such a great decline in employment. The central