“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it” (Albert Einstein). Mike Rose in “Blue Collar Brilliance” discusses the topic of education and how they correlate with intelligence. There is a general belief in society that attending college is the only way of obtaining intelligence. While education and intelligence can associate in some aspects, it is only for careers that require a higher degree to get the job. Other careers may require experiences and special skill sets that could never teach in a classroom.
To support this argument, Mike Rose begins the article “Blue-collar intelligence” with his mother’s life story. The author observes his mother as a waitress in a family restaurant. Rose describes how his mother memorized customers’ orders, how long each dish was supposed to prepare, and how she became an expert in her line of the workforce. Then, Rose also goes into his article to illustrate his views on intelligence by his uncle’s work. With thirty-three years experiences in the workforce, Joe became a supervisor in paint and body department at General Motor with only an 8th-grade education. From two examples of Rosie and Joe, the author concedes that blue-collar workforce is intellectually under-recognized. This argument is worthy of consideration because of the valid of the point that why society should appreciate all blue-collar workers.
Blue collar jobs require as much as intelligence as jobs that require formal education credentials. In the article “Blue-collar Brilliance”, Mike disagrees with the assumption as “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 believe that work requiring less schooling require less intelligence” (Rose,276). Rose believes this assumption is one of the social misconceptions in our society, as the more formal instruction you have at school, the smarter you are, and vice versa. To make a counterpoint, the author speaks to his uncle, Joe, who worked at the factory and the way he had to make every move count and was always solving new problems. “Joe constantly faced new problems and became a consummate multi-tasker, evaluating a flurry of demands quickly, parceling out physical and mental resources…” (Rose, 277).
Rose concedes blue-collar jobs took more than was not just for the illiterate, it takes a lot of learning machine, and routines survive in such a job. This kind of job takes lots of training to understand concepts and do the job efficiency. The more time training you spend, the more professions you are. No one can be expert in their fields without an enormous amount of efforts and dedications in the job. Therefore, a person work at a place like this does not view as an uneducated or unintelligent worker. Rose insisted that blue-collar job seem to require more intelligence than meets the eyes. Blue collar jobs demand on both body and brain so that they help workers build specialized skills in the workplaces. These specialized skills are the physical works which not only require hand working but also require mental capacity.
The demand of blue-collar work also based on the spot mathematical and writing skills, such as carpenters, who have to “have an eye for length, line, and angle” (Rose,280) in their fields. This job requires employees to obtain full knowledge about measuring down every inch in the woods to make it be precise and write out order forms, so they can get the materials they need. Tools, materials, concepts, and data need to be understood carefully to make the job done correctly. Mike emphasizes that the use of a machine requires motor skills to perform because an employees need to know the primary purpose of the tool in a particular situation. By working with a mechanism in a long-term, the workers became attuned to every aspect of the environment that enhances knowledge of the job. As a result, workers get more trained and disciplined. When an employee achieves that purpose, the process of learning and improving from their mistakes makes them smarter and intelligent.
Although formal education is important, learning how to use those skill is more critical as well. College educations are unable to perform work experiences that a blue-collar worker can learn at school. Blue-collar jobs demand on skills more than only formal education or higher degree without any practices. There is no denying that experience is impossible to learn in a classroom. Experience is the result of the hard-working process in a long time. Mike Rose agrees with this view by demonstrating experience is the only factor drive blue-collar workers to the success goals in their life. The amount of time a person goes through their jobs at a different stage will be equal to the amount of experience that he or she deserved to receive. The more experiences, the more workers will work better and effectively. Blue-collar jobs may become repetitive, but each of these works learns through experiences. Mike Rose proves this illustration by claiming as “Though work-related actions become routine with experience, they were learned at some point through observation, trial, and error, and often, physical or verbal assistance…” (Rose, 279).
Blue-collar workforces learn from their mistakes and turn those mistakes to lessons improving themselves. Hence, their productivity has been more efficient and effective. For instance, people do not need degree to start to change a lightbulb, maybe guidance encouragement but not schooling. Once you change the lightbulb once or twice, you became an expert on this field because of your obtained experience. Furthermore, another example of the importance of skills and success of a blue-collar employee is a textile worker. In textile manufacturing, a new employee needs to spend a dozen hour to finish a shirt. Day by day, month by month, with the same amount of hours, that textile worker can make double, triple, or more shirts as before. Through experiences, observations, and trials and error, blue-collar workers learn how to accomplish their tasks every day successfully. Mike Rose demonstrates the role of blue-collar labor in his article to change the way the society views this kind of workers.
Many people assume that blue-collar workers are all either too dumb, lazy and are not hard-workers. This perspective is just far from the truth. Blue-Collar workers probably work harder than a lot of white-collar workers. The reason makes blue-collar workers pay a lot of attention in their jobs because they have awareness about the value of hard-working. Mike Rose shines a light on this view when he mentions his mother in the article, saying that ‘Her tip depended on how well she responses to these needs, and so she became adept at reading social cues and managing feelings’ (Rose,275). Rose observes that more hard-working occurs in the blue-collar workplace, the more credits they deserve to receive. In other hands, a white-collar with a master degree from a reputable university but he or she is too lazy in working, he or she cannot compare to a hard-working blue-collar.
A lot of blue-collar workers do not go to college, but it does not mean they are dumber or lazier than white-collar employees. Not attending to college does not show that the ones are less smart than someone who goes to college. People have different personality types, and obtain kinds of work come naturally to some people. For instance, I have a friend who is good at working with cars and he is not attending college. Does that mean he is less intelligent than I am because I am going to school? No, it certainly does not. Perhaps I can solve multiple word problems in Math or Chemistry at school, I still do not have any ideas how to fix my car if it is broken down. In other words, perhaps my friend is not good at Math as I am, he still has specific skills in fixing a broken car. The example about my friend illustrates that intelligence still presents in blue-collar workers, but in a different way. Therefore, blue-collar workers do not dumb because of the absence of personalized education.
One last claim I would like to debate there is that blue-collar workers are equally important to society as white-collar workers are. When white-collar workers keep the business world moving, who keeps everything running beneath them? The answer is blue-collar workers. The architect designs a house on paper, and the constructor builds that house up. The producer invests money to promote the product commercially, while the worker works hard to produce products for the consumers. These examples analyze that blue-collar and white-collar workers are supportive of each other to get the best result for the job. Society needs both blue-collar and white-collar labors. Without one, the others cannot exist. If we throw any blue-collar jobs on the table and see the negative consequences, the world would have without that job, hence providing my point that blue collar workers are just as crucial as white-collar workers.
Intelligence requires any profession as long as that is the key ingredient to any profession, it should not matter whetherthe person is performing educated or uneducated, blue or white collar. Mike Rose does a remarkable job of portraying his stance on the intelligence of people in the workforce. The author can effectively convey his idea to audiences through the article “Blue-collar Brilliance.” Rose accurates in the fact that people can use their intelligence in any forms besides higher education. Society should look at what blue-collar workers provide for the community instead of focus on how high is their level in former education. If we continue to degrade the vital of blue-collar workers because of their lack of knowledge, the blue-collar labors are going to be looked down upon by the rest of society. Throughout this essay, I drive the point of appreciating all of the blue-collar workers and also appreciate the different types of skills and intelligence that presents in our society.
Work cites
- Rose, Mike. “Blue-Collar Brilliance.”
- ‘They Say / I Say’: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, by Gerald Graff et al., 3rd ed., vol. 78, W.W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 272–283.
