Summary of Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose

In “Blue-Collar Brilliance”,the author Mike Rose talks about his childhood and the time he spent at his mother’s work place. He then understood the physical and mental efforts his mother was going through every single day. At the very young age,she quit school to take care of her siblings. Mike Rose got back to his feet after his freshman year.He also mentioned about  the relationship between blue-collar workers, and their level of intelligence. Mike observed his mother at work, and saw the challenging “demands of both body and brain”  that she faced.  The majority of Mike’s family either dropped out of, or didn’t do well in school, however, that didn’t stop any of them from becoming successful. Mike’s uncle, Joe Meraglio, a 9th grade dropout, started his life as a Pennsylvania Railroad worker, and  rose to a supervisor of General Motors paint-and-body department.  
                       Mike also claims that work is an interactive environment where workers teach and learn from each other, and is not necessarily a place where “raw intelligence” is needed. I do agree with Mike Rose opinion on eduction but I also contradict some of the ideas he said.  Education should not only be measured by your schooling, but it is an important part. You cannot only learn concepts by trial and error, you also have to get a good education.  Education is the basis that every person needs to find a job and to get by in the world. If we do not have educated people in our society there will be more people out of jobs and will bring the level of the public down.
                 Mike Rose is arguing that blue-collar workers often use the same tools in order to solve problems as white-collar do. He even shows that his uncle went from working on the assembly to make vital decisions for his department. He is making the case that even the plumber, the hair styler, the carpenter,the waitress use strategy and management to perform their daily duty which are opposed to the Cartesian fashion of defining intelligence. Blue-collar also use mathematics function to perform.I do acknowledge  Rose’s view points on “Blue-Collar Brilliance”,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 and inherent intelligence to carry out some degree of education. It is up to the individual however, to be motivated and follow through with this process. Although it is a pity 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.


After reading Blue Collar Brilliance by Mike Rose and relating with Who Built The Pyramid by Mike Lefevre, I found both as a blue collar jobs and same physical jobs and more effort on things at work and tiresome jobs. Both has to do same thing each day and mind exhausted work and learning skill from their jobs.