Blue collar workers are known to be part of a middle to lower class group. Although blue collar jobs aren’t very high paying, and most of the workers haven’t had an education past high school, most of their jobs consist of critical thinking, and problem solving. In the article’s “Blue Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose, and “First, Eat All the Lawyers” by Torie Bosch both authors state how blue-collar workers are more driven to be the best at their job, and have many more skills to be taken into the…
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After reading several essays that The Norton Reader has to offer I decided on choosing the essay titled “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose for my assignment response to reading an essay. I choose this essay because I am the definition of quote on quote blue collar as I have been working in the restaurant industry for nearly the last sixteen years. I know the steps, the value of each of my step or misstep, and how these steps impact my serving abilities. I relate to this essay because I have to…
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On Blue-Collar Brilliance In Blue Collar Brilliance, Professor Mike Rose provides a distinctive insight into the cognitive value of wage labor. Specifically, he tells us how he spent time while growing up at the restaurant where his mother worked as a waitress. It was here that he observed “a place where competence was synonymous with physical work”. Corroborating the common belief that body and mind are separated and by which people insist that the complexity of using of a tool is very distant from…
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years. Many people would disagree, but I would prefer to have solid connections and rapport with my coworkers and the general public. Many characteristics come to mind when thinking of a successful life. The first for me is knowledge. In “Blue-Collar Brilliance” by Mike Rose, he says, “A waitress acquires knowledge and intuition about the ways and the rhythms of the restaurant business.” The same goes when wearing your Sam Browne as a police officer. You are the dictionary of the streets when it…
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A professor and writer of literacy issues, Mike Rose, in his piece Blue-Collar Brilliance, aims to counteract the stigma encompassing blue-collar and pink-collar occupations by narrating stories of his family members’ jobs and addressing the different levels of intellect required to perform several tasks while managing amongst others. Intelligence isn’t commonly associated with blue-collar careers as in popular belief, mental capacity correlates to possessing both verbal and mathematical skills along…
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In his 2009 article "Blue-Collar Brilliance," author Mike Rose explores and dispels the intellectual assumptions levied on the blue-collar working class by our society. With his insight into the service and production industries, he highlights the often overlooked physical and mental demands these workers must overcome to become successful in their respective fields. His writing illustrates how we often correlate low-wage and labor positions with an inferior intellectual ability. Rose asserts that…
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In his essay “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” Mike Rose argues that, “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.”(lines 56-58) Mike Rose believes that society thinks that blue-collar jobs are mindless. He wants to show people that their common sense is wrong, so he starts with his mother’s story, who worked…
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article “Blue-Collar Brilliance,” Mike Rose argues that blue-collar workers gain more knowledge through hands on experience than people give them credit for. These manual careers are commonly thought of as not needing much intelligence or skill. However, in Rose’s view, the ability to multitask and the different capabilities that are cultivated while performing such jobs educate the worker in a way not frequently acknowledged. In his own words, “I'm struck by the thinking-in-motion that some [blue-collar]…
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Blue-Collar Jobs, majority of the world thinks that they are less hard-working or valuable than white-collar jobs, well I believe that they are extremely misguided.Many people assume that white-collar jobs require more intelligence and effort , just because they require a certain amount of education.Blue-Collar workers have many of the same skills and tools that white-collar workers go to school for four or more years to learn.Blue-Collar work demands both on the body and mind.Moreover, blue-collar…
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American education system is not wholly fit for preparing students for life, something Mike Rose, author of the essay Blue-Collar Brilliance, and Gerald Graff, author of the essay Hidden Intellectualism, can agree upon. Both Rose and Graff show how the intellectualism taught in schools is…
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