In the essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance” it begins with a fairly detailed description of Mike Rose’s mother at her work as a waitress in Los Angeles during the 1950’s, when he was a child. Mike Rose is a professor at the UCLA graduate school of education and information studies. This article originally appeared in 2009 in the American Scholar, a magazine published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Rose’s intended audience for this article is white collar workers, who usually hold a negative perspective towards their colleagues who aren’t as well educated as them. Mike Rose uses his mother and uncle as examples of his argument that those without formal education have important kinds of intelligence as well just in different ways. He also points out that people assume less time in school means that a person is less intelligent. First in Rose’s article he starts telling his personal experiences as a foundation for his claims to conceive the emotional effect towards the blue-collar workers. He writes about his family members to …show more content…
He is a professor who specialized in literacy and learning. He also did a “study of the thought processes involved in work like that of his mother and uncle. I cataloged the cognitive demands of a range of blue-collar and service jobs, from waitressing and hair styling to plumbing and welding. To gain a sense of how knowledge and skill develop, I observed experts as well as novices. From the details of this close examination, I tried to fashion what I called “cognitive Biographies” of blue-collar workers. He’s studies in human behavior and psyche, allowed him to analysis his own family who endured a life of blue-collar community. Rose was willing to expose his childhood life to express the complexity of such jobs, and also to clarify that those jobs contain much more than just the physical aspects of
The Brothers faced this challenge in their, largely, futile attempts to achieve middle class status through achieving a proper education. Macleod highlights that, historically, the “overall structure of class relations from one generation to the next” is extremely reluctant to change(4). The Brothers evince this in their inability to earn work with greater wages than their parents, forcing them to live in working class neighborhoods like they did. Although some of the Brothers did manage to obtain middle class work, they struggled to keep those jobs as they either got laid off or were pressured out believing that they just didn’t fit in the workplace environment- though this is largely in fact due to differences in cultural capital, knowledge, disposition, and skills passed on generationally, that arise from the different upbringings of the supervisors and the Brothers.
Do you think someone with a higher education-level job requires more from the worker than someone that started working right from high school? Or do you think that not going to college after high school means that you just stop learning? One of Mike Rose’s main ideas in the Blue-Collar Brilliance is the question, is there really a difference between white and blue collar worker? Mike Rose is being persuasive in the text because he shows how his family went through blue collar work. I think Mike Rose is being persuasive in writing this.
The authors’ emphasis on “on average” is very effective at showing how their point makes sense and why it should be taken into consideration. I found the way that the authors focused on the minority more than the majority was skillfully effective at showing how some career paths do not require a college education and that the return in investment would not be worth the cost. Throughout their argument I found the writers to mostly use Logos and Ethos in their writing. The Logos is evident by the way they use statistics and the Ethos by how they state telling someone the only way to be successful is to go to college is a disservice. This is effective at making the reader think about how this should affect the decision of going to college and whether they should push someone to go to
“Intelligence is closely associated with formal education- the type of schooling a person has, how much and how long- and most people seem to move comfortably from that notion to a belief that work requiring less schooling requires less intelligence” (Rose). What Rose is trying to infer is that just because you are labeled blue collar: meaning you have to earn your income from manual labor, and have lack of educational knowledge, does not mean you cannot earn the knowledge in your work career. There are many opportunities to learn from your job even if you are less experienced. “...One who is so intelligent about so many things in life seems unable to apply that intelligence to academic work.
“Hidden Intellectualism,” by Gerald Graff starts off with an older argument between being book smart and street smart. Throughout the reading, Graff uses his own life experiences to critique the education system today. Points made focus on the idea of overlooking the intellectual potential of those who come across as being, “street smart”. Different authors cited in the reading to show how to accept another’s different intellectual. However, we realize that people who come across as being intellectual weren’t always labeled as that.
He explains how he observed different types of blue-collar and service workers in action, and came to the conclusion that each of these tasks have a skill that takes a lot of mind power to master. Their work is educational at every degree. Blue-collar workers develop intelligence and skills in a workplace through proper planning, problem solving, social interactions and multitasking. Most blue collar jobs are constantly faced with new problems every day, in the midst of busy schedules, that demand instant solution. Blue Collar jobs require just as much intelligence as jobs that require formal academic credentials.
The Rhetorical Analysis of the “America Needs its Nerds” The mental capacity is treated as a disadvantage in the America, despite the fact it already helped the country many times. This long-term problem became the main topic of the Leonid Fridman’s essay “America Needs its Nerds”. The work first appeared on January 11, 1990 in the New York Times as a part of the series “Voices of the New Generation”. The author spoke about the negative attitude the American society has to smart people and demonstrates it with the usage of words like “nerd” or “geek”.
The first time one is able to comprehend the meaning of a word is a momentous childhood moment that is forever engraved in one’s memory. Books and reading are significantly impactful to people’s lives; Mark Twain said that, “books are for people who wish they were somewhere else.” This statement is apropo for Sherman Alexie, who was a Native American living on a reservation during the time he learned to read. Sherman Alexie convinces his audience that an education is crucial to being successful by using personal anecdotes to captivate and create a connection with his audience and repetition to reiterate the importance of having an education. Alexie's use of personal anecdotes fortifies the impact he has on his audience.
In "Blue-Collar Brilliance" Mike Rose Shares his perspective on how education is not Intelligence. He lets us know how growing up he was around a bunch of Blue-Collar workers himself, and how intelligence is not based on the education you have but what you can Develop on your own from just being open minded. He explains to use how blue-collar jobs take a toll on both body and mind. He believes that you don't need to be taught things to develop intelligence that your intelligence comes from within. He shared the different stories of blue-collar workers life that he experience such as his mother and his uncle to help us see that even if you don't have a high education and a college degree you can still become a successful.
Analysis of the Rhetorical Strategy used by Mike Rose in “Blue Collar Brilliance” Scrolling through social media, one would see a lot of posts from accounts called RelatableGifs2016, or SchoolMemes101. From the names of the accounts one can make an educated guess about they might post. Relatable pictures. When something is familiar it becomes more understandable, and people tend to empathize more with something if they can have a connection with it.
Intellectualism is the factor of being intellect or intelligent. The idea of what it means to be educated can be interpreted many different ways by different people. Some think it’s having a 4.0 and going to Harvard, while others believe in the idea of having common sense. In the essay, “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff reflects how lack of education is viewed negatively in society. On top of that, a question also lies what it means to educated.
The author sets up a picture of himself as a student and a factory worker. The story shows us about what happens when a student decides to take a part-time job in the summer while continuing his education. Andrew Braaksma makes some great points in his article. The three main points in the article are to express the importance of education. We need to appreciate the value of being employed.
The growing gap between the upper class and the lower class has been expensive. In “Biographies of Hegemony”, Karen Ho looks into the prevalent ideology named “culture of smartness” and explores the close tie between some of America’s most powerful and prestigious universities and Wall Street firms. Joseph Stiglitz, the author of “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society”, is concerned about
“Blue Collar Brilliance” After Graduating High School students have a choice of going to college or not. College is a place where students want to be educated or have a better job in the future. Some people believe that students who go to college more intelligence than students who go working after graduating high school. However, going to college does not means all students as intelligence; because students might go to colleges to have a degree, but not to be intelligence. Sometimes intelligences can be measures by the level of school a student completed, but for a blue collar job they need to practice and observe in the field to be able to perform the job on they own preference.
The “gross” jobs are going unloved in this world today. Blue-collar jobs are the same as white-collar jobs. Blue-collar jobs use the same skills. If you work hard at your job you can get anywhere with this job. Pay may be low at your starting point, but as you work harder and longer you could become a millionaire.