What Is The Main Idea Of Blue Collar Brilliance By Mike Rose

Mike Rose’s introduces his argument by explaining the intelligence of blue collar workers and emphasizing his belief that blue-collar jobs require certain skills and tasks acquired by experience, and should not be viewed as menial tasks held by uneducated people. He goes on to point out that there are many people that feel “intelligence is…the type of schooling a person has…[and] work requiring less school requires less intelligence,” but then goes on to explain why this belief is simply not true. Rose starts with the story of his mother, Rosie, and describes what he has observed of her intelligence throughout the years of his childhood, as he

In past years, when people was talking about higher education, they had no hesitation to mention university immediately. When others were mentioning that college also belonged to higher education, sometimes they reacted with a wry smile, and shook their heads. Yes, even if it is for today, university gets the higher appraisal than college, and even many people think ‘‘college as America used to understand it is coming to an end.’’ As parents, they prefer their children to study in university instead of college, no matter how high of tuition the university it is. They ignore the value of college. Although sometimes college is viewed as critical by other people, we still can find its value, and how it is really beneficial for our lives, even if we don’t pursue a degree.

He observed that each blue collar occupation requires different kinds of intelligence and skills in addition to quick decision making and large quantities of mental capacity in order to fulfill each person’s duty. Rose argues that in doing so, the worker becomes tuned to solving problems “that both enhances knowledge and informs perception” (280). While it may not seem apparent, blue collar workers actually use a wide range of skills that are difficult to find in other occupations, specifically in white collar

In “Blue Collar Brilliance” Mike Rose starts of by telling us two stories, one about his mother and the other about his uncle Joe. They worked what people would call blue collar jobs; everybody usually perceives blue collar jobs as grunt work which doesn’t take much intelligence to work. However Rose disagrees with that notion; Rose describes to us in detail how his moms’ intellect in the restaurant work field kept the place calm, efficient and balanced. He also told us a story of how his uncle Joe worked up the ranks of the auto industry after dropping out of school in the ninth grade. One of Rose’s main points in “Blue Collar Brilliance” is that intelligence isn’t always measured with grades and tests and, that blue collar jobs take just

Many people consider book smart the only form of intelligence, but a lot of people who attended college and obtained a degree can’t perform a basic task of changing a flat tire. So does that make those people unintelligent? Mike Rose explains in “Blue Collar Brilliance” and Gerald Graff explains in “Hidden Intellectualism” that there are many different forms of intelligence. In Rose’s article, he explains how he observed his mother along with other family members work blue-collar jobs. He explains how everyone involved with blue collared work develops a sense of intelligence in many different forms. In Graff’s article, he explains how schools and colleges are doing a poor job at getting the full potential out of students. Graff thinks that if we give students things they like to read then they will progress to more scholarly readings. Both authors describe how society doesn’t value all types of intellectualism. Rose explains how people are stereotyping blue-collared jobs and not appreciating them. Graff explains how schools and colleges aren’t fostering intellectualism because they don’t take interests into account.

Education means something different for everyone. According to Mike Rose, “a good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it” (33). The truth to this is that education affects us in every aspect of our lives. Rose emphasizes the value in the experience of education beyond the value of education for the purpose of custom or intelligence; he explores the purpose of going to school in terms of how he defines himself and his personal growth in the stages of his academic career. In Rose’s exploration of the purpose of school, he also reflects on his personal experiences and how those experiences gave him tools that are applicable to his daily life. Mike Rose’s Why School?: Reclaiming Education for All of Us persuades his audience of the importance of education beyond the classroom, emphasizing how those experiences become crucial to one’s personal growth and potential.

Blue Collar workers as the fundamental that makes up America. One such man, author Mike Rose a professor at UCLA, who wrote "Blue-Collar Brilliance," published in a reputable magazine in 2009 in the American Scholar, what Rose argues, is that blue-collar workers often overlooked. In effect, that the establishment of where you work acts as an institution of learning and those without a formal education have valuable types of "brilliance." Rose argues his claim by using pathos, logos through personal stories, credentials, and comprehensive counterarguments.

Academic work should not define intelligence nor should a job define ability; a person, regardless of grades, degrees, or job title, is an intellect. Together, Gerald Graff, a coauthor of They Say I say, professor, and former anti-intellect, author of "Hidden Intellectualism," and Mike Rose, professor, author, and in depth thinker, author of "Blue-Collar Brilliance," share two different perspectives on what an intellect truly is. Yet, both writings hold meaningful points and experiences to prove who qualifies to be an intellect. Society continuously focuses on what leads to a successful and rounded life: go to school, graduate, go back to school, get a degree, and then a job. It is believed that these high expectations of higher academics enables one to be more successful is correct; however, it is not. It is a person’s individual goals that give them the success they wish to have whether that be education, volunteering, or donating. Also, street smarts is not to be overlooked; a person with common sense can know more than a Doctor. Typically, a person can have either common sense or intelligence, not both. Street smarts is, without a doubt, a superior quality to possess as it encompasses more in life than just a degree does. For example, it is more appropriate to know how to cross a street properly in life than know how to perform a craniotomy. Furthermore, one does not gain knowledge and life lessons through school alone, but through experience,

Many people in today’s society tend to believe that a good education is the fastest way to move up the ladder in their chosen. People believe that those who seek further education at a college or university are more intelligent. Indeed, a college education is a basic requirement for many white collar, and some blue collar, jobs. In an effort to persuade his audience that intelligence cannot be measured by the amount of education a person has Mike Rose wrote an article entitled “Blue Collar Brilliance”. The article that appeared in the American Scholar, a quarterly literary magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, established in 1932. The American Scholar audience includes, Company’s , Employees,

Rose starts off with a special anecdote about his mother’s job as a waitress and then provides another anecdote of his uncle’s automotive job. By doing this, it appeals to the audience with a heartfelt and personal situation which makes it more relatable for the readers. Rose says “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” (1034). This gives the notion that her job was not only hard physically but she had to mentally arrange the objects in her arms before picking them up to get all of it done at once. Rosie, his mother, was always very observant and “her tip depended on how well she adapted to those needs” which meant that her attitude at work was highly important. Rosie herself said, “there isn't a day that goes by in the restaurant that you don’t learn something.” Rose then goes on to tell what his uncle Joe had learned from being a factory worker

In the article, “Blue-Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic to College” from Writing Now, author Libby Sander talks about workers in the baby boomer generation that are attending college to get new skills for the new jobs they hope to land. Sander says that middle aged people coming back to college is becoming more common as they become unable to do physical demanding jobs but are too young to retire (Sander 642).

What is the American Dream? Some describe the American Dream as a two parent family with two kids and a dog living in a home with a white picket fence. Others declare having millions of dollars and a beach home is the ultimate goal. So, what exactly is the American Dream? In the Conservative conference speech “We Will Be a City upon a Hill”, Ronald Reagan demanded that traditional values defined the American Dream while President Obama argued equality was quintessential. In both presidential speeches, they each discussed two vastly drastic interpretations of the American Dream however, their speeches both themed constructs seen in Jim Cullen’s book to support their arguments.

In my observation mentally with Mr. Roses essay on blue collar brilliance, Mr Rose tries to tell the reader on the different levelsof work there is for high educated people opposed to the non educated. Furthermore he tries express through his family experiences in the work environment how a person with a manual labor is not so different than a person with a high level of education, they are equal in job to job views but not in society.

There is a Chinese proverb that says, “ Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.” Steve Olson wrote an essay that talks about that very principle. He titled his essay “Year of the Blue-Collar Guy.” It is about the hard working blue collar guys (BCGs) living in America. Steve Olson is a writer that does not have the usual degrees, awards or publications. Though he has written several books, he says that he is a construction worker. He writes for the average American, so what is Olsen’s purpose in writing about BCGs? To accomplish his purpose I looked at what kind of modes of persuasion he uses, how he responds to the arguing side of his point, and what logical fallacies he uses.

In America, there are innumerable types of jobs, and the jobs are split into two categories: blue collar and white collar. In the article, “White-Collar vs. Blue-Collar” by Ian Harrison these two categories are discussed. This article talks about the leverages and weaknesses of the jobs in these categories. The “White-Collar” jobs are more satisfying because the jobs offer more opportunities and are more challenging than other jobs.