Blue Collar Brilliance Analysis

People with street smarts can just be as intellectual as a person who is book smart if you can get them to open up and willing to talk about their personal interests. Schools will be more successful in taping in the minds of a street smart kid by having them introduce personal interests in their academic work. These street smart kids are more willing to be academically intelligent if they introduce personal interests into their own school work. It allows the kid to be free and talk about a subject that they have more knowledge on than a subject they barely touched base on a couple weeks ago. By having students introducing personal interests in their academic work they are more willing to succeed in their work because they have plenty of support. Graff says in the last paragraph of his essay, “Give me a student anytime who writes a sharply argued, sociologically acute analysis of an issue of Source over the student who writes a lifeless explication of Hamlet or Socrate’s Apology.” (Graff 270) Schools need to identify both sides of the human being and notice that one is just not alike as the

In “Blue Collar Brilliance,” the author, Mike Rose, challenges the assertion that intelligence and ability is measured by the amount of education one completes through his personal experiences, observations, and beliefs. In doing so, Rose suggests that blue collar workers actually require more intellect than assumed.

Society’s view on intelligence is becoming watered down from the truth. In Rose’s article, “Blue Collar Brilliance” Rose discusses societies outlook on intelligence. Rose explains how society thinks blue collared jobs don’t involve any intelligence, and anyone can do a blue collared job. He explains how society thinks that since you don’t have to have a high education to perform well in blue collared jobs, it takes little to no intelligence. Rose says, “We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on grades in school and numbers on IQ test” (Rose 279). Rose explains that even though most blue collared jobs don’t require a college degree, they still demand many forms of intelligence. Rose also explains how his brother dropped out of school in the ninth grade but eventually became a successful employee of the company General Motors. In Graff’s article, “Hidden Intellectualism” he explains how there are many students in today’s world who have an outstanding amount of “street smarts” but are failing school. He explains

Writer, Mike Rose, in his rhetorical essay, “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” voices his familiarities with family members that labored blue-collar jobs as well as a few of his occurrences as a student. Persuading his audience, Rose judges that blue-collar jobs require intelligence and that intelligence should not be dignified by the amount of schooling that one has received. Mike Rose not only analyzes his mother, a waitress, but nonetheless of his uncle, who started a job working on the assembly line at General Motors and accomplished enough to become a supervisor. Comparing the lives of his family and the author’s experience in receiving a higher education, Rose describes his experience in observing

One’s intelligence cannot simply be measured based on his or her educational background. Intellect is spawned from within based on an individual’s experience and desire for additional knowledge. In the article, "Blue-Collar Brilliance", Mike rose contends the egocentric notion regarding what makes an individual intelligent; western civilization has drug on their fascistic opinions since earlier times. Everything including one 's intellectual capabilities has been measured by a hierarchy designed by the white man in order to oppress non-white civilization. Our intellectual capacity is bigger than a formal education; Intelligence that is acquired outside of the classroom is commensurate to those who have solemn educations.

In the essay “Hidden Intellectualism”, by Gerald Graff, Graff argues that academic schools and colleges miss the opportunity to see street smarts and only focus on academic smarts. He explains how street smarts overcome academic smarts because of how people and our culture thrive for sports and entertainment, such as movies, video games, and music they prefer it over academic subjects. As Graff grew up he realized that the sport world was more entertaining and compelling than academic work he did during school. Graff states, “Sports after all was full of challenging arguments, debates, problems for analysis, and intricate statistics that you could care about, as school conspicuously was not (384). He also describes when he was in his college

In the essay, “Blue Collar Brilliance” the author Mike Rose interprets how difficult blue-collar jobs are when telling the experiences from the 1950’s of his mother that was a waitress at coffee shops and family restaurants, and his uncle that worked his way up to a manager for a general motors department. Rose really emphasizes how those without the proper amount of education can achieve an acceptable amount of intelligence in the blue-collar workforce by observing how his mother uses her knowledge to manage stressful situations and how she utilizes her memory strategies to remember what needs to get done at a specific time frame to satisfy her customers. Rose also explains how intelligence comes with years of experienced hard work by telling the story of his uncle when he worked at the General Motors factory and shows the amount of intelligence that was required of him to advance

In the Essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance”, Mike Rose writes about the knowledge and skills a blue collar worker gains from their experiences in the work field. Rose talks about his Mother’s job as a waitress and how she learned certain routines throughout her experience as a waitress. In the essay, Rose mentions his uncle with an eighth grade education and how he used the knowledge he gained at the Pennsylvania Railroad to improve the company and advance in his career. Rose writes about how blue-collar workers are generally seen as less intelligent individuals to their white-collar counterparts. Rose gives examples on the little things blue-collar workers do such as a mover determining how to get an electric range down a flight of stairs and a plumber seeking leverage in order to work in

In his article, Hidden Intellectualism, Graff argues that it is essential to educate students who do not realize their own intellectual talents for themselves and allow students who are street smart an advantage to put on their extracurricular skills in academic study. Graff explains that it is unfair to label students as having “book smarts or “street smart”, claiming that they may have one or the other as opposed to both contributing to a student’s success in the classroom. Graff states that schools are missing the chance to help “street smart” students succeed by taking away their nonacademic interests that could help them in school.

In the essay "Let Teenagers Try Adulthood", Leon Botstein expresses that the "superficial definitions" of high school students present a reason that they should be allowed to begin their lives in the working world rather than to prolong their education. Botstein is correct in proclaiming that high schools are breeding grounds for "cliques" and "artificial intensity”, and his address of the “flawed institution” of high school is cogent and fitting.

Yes, i was surprised by the task that are involved in blue collar work. I do acknowledge Rose’s viewpoints in “Blue-Collar Brilliance” and that it is under estimated. However, in my opinion, it is not that these blue-collar workers are not capable of achieving higher education; it is because some choose not to. I believe that every individual has the potential to accomplish some degree of education. It is up to the individual to have motivation and follow through with what it takes to receive this. Although, it is a sadness that these blue-collared workers do not get the credit they deserve, in a sense, they are receiving credit comparable to the effort they put into education.

As a student in high school, you have your nerds, jocks, and the regular students. When it comes to work and activities some things the nerds won’t necessarily do. Nerds tend to be much smarter than the jocks. Not really saying that Jocks are not smart. Jocks are more into sports rather than nerds. They both will get their work done to be successful and to have grades they would want. Sometimes I just feel as if I'm just a regular student because I'm not a nerd nor a jock. I realized there is a difference between a nerd and jock but with little similarity.

Another reason that middle school kids do not want to go to school is because of the busy work load. Busy work is work that a teacher gives to their students to keep them occupied. Most of the time busy work is meaningless.. If

Some very smart people were stereotyped in high school so badly they never wanted to try again. Those popular cheerleaders seem to think that they were only worth a "rah, rah", and stoners didn't think that they were worth anything. In talking with a few of the different professionals that come into my work, I asked them what type of a person they were in high school. A couple said that they were they book nerd type, but the majority said they were the stoner type with long hair and leather jackets, or they were the cheerleaders that we thought couldn't do anything. I also talked to a mother who's son was considered a stoner in school, got bad grades, and never seemed like he was going to amount to anything. Then, unexpectedly, he came to her and said that he had been accepted into a culinary school in New Orleans. She was so excited for him then, but she is more proud now. He has become a well know chef in a very prestigious restaurant called Casey's. The general consensus between all of them

At any school, the athletes are put on a peddle stool and the smart kids barely get any recognition from the school. According to Grant Penrod this is the problem with schools and the students at the school. This is seen as a problem because of the younger generation at school. Grant Penrod wrote this essay at Arizona State University and it won second place in the Printer’s Devil Contest (759). This author is writing towards high school or college students about problems at school. Penrod begins to build his credibility with facts from websites, statements people have made online, percentages, and emotional content to make the reader feel emotion. Towards the end of the article Penrod includes a quote from a student that is considered a nerd. Penrod wrote this essay to inform the audience about how nerds are looked at as being intellectualism and how other students look down at that.