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The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker
In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed and Studs Terkel’s Working, The Mind at Work is an illuminating reassessment of American labor. Testimonials to physical work have always celebrated the dignity, the economic and moral value, even the nobility of blue-collar labor, but rarely the thought required to get the job done right. The lightning-fast organization and mental calculations of the waitress; the complex spatial mathematics of the carpenter; the aesthetic and intellectual dexterity of the hair stylist—our failure to acknowledge or respect these qualities has undermined a large portion of America’s working population. In The Mind at Work award-winning writer Mike Rose sets the record straight by taking a long hard look at the intellectual demands of common work.
Integrating personal stories of his own working-class family with interviews, vivid snapshots of people on the job, and current research in social science and cognitive psychology, Rose draws a brilliantly original portrait of America at work. As he probes the countless decisions, computations, and subtle judgments made every day by welders and plumbers, waitresses and electricians, Rose redefines the nature of important work and overturns the “hand/brain” dichotomy that blinds us to the real contributions of working people.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
39 people are currently reading
756 people want to read
About the author
Mike Rose
60 books26 followersMike Rose spent his career in public service, first as a city planner and eventually as a town manager. Mike’s fertile imagination and desire to be a writer started at an early age. Being from a family with an Irish Catholic background, Mike had his share of funny stories and wonderful characters. Add to that nearly 40 years of dealing with the public and elected officials, well, books practically write themselves.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
April 23, 2015
I thought this was wonderful: closely observed, written with nuance and thoughtfulness. Much of the content is obvious to anyone with an appreciation for "manual" labor, but Rose knows his audience. He writes to convince academics, and so he uses their language - though not in too esoteric a way to be accessible to a general audience -- to advance his argument that high-level cognitive skills are at work in jobs we usually consider to be menial.
He writes of the importance of attention and perception; about the use of tools and instruments (framing squares, rulers, scissors), but also about the importance of disciplined perception, of being able to "eyeball a structure for misalignment" or hear, while having a conversation with someone else, that a group of students is using a saw inappropriately, bending the wood and straining the motor (73).
Favorite passages: "When we think about problem solving, creativity, acts of the mind, we tend to think of the grand moment, the clarifying insight, the breakthrough, the tough nut cracked . . . But I think it is also worth dwelling on the commonplace, ordinary expressions of mind that every day, a thousand times over, enable the work of the world to get done" (72).
He writes of the importance of attention and perception; about the use of tools and instruments (framing squares, rulers, scissors), but also about the importance of disciplined perception, of being able to "eyeball a structure for misalignment" or hear, while having a conversation with someone else, that a group of students is using a saw inappropriately, bending the wood and straining the motor (73).
Favorite passages: "When we think about problem solving, creativity, acts of the mind, we tend to think of the grand moment, the clarifying insight, the breakthrough, the tough nut cracked . . . But I think it is also worth dwelling on the commonplace, ordinary expressions of mind that every day, a thousand times over, enable the work of the world to get done" (72).
November 3, 2009
As an education scholar who as a kid from a blue collar family was tracked into remedial-vocational classes (see his excellent Lives on the Boundary), Rose is the perfect person to examine the literacies involved in skills never examined in traditional school settings. A good blend of narrative and scholarly explanation pitched to a general reader. So far this book reminds me of my experience working in a paper mill during summers and semester breaks from college and feeling worthless when a paper-making machine broke down (which tended to happen often in the ancient mill)and watching these old guys on the crew calmly fix things with an economy of graceful motion, accomplished under the pressure of wet paper spitting out at several feet per second.
Just finished teaching this in my developmental writing course. The students, who typically have a weak background in education, really enjoyed reading about other forms of literacy that require just as much, if not more, cognitive processing as traditional school work. Rose is an elegant, even impassioned writer, but never wallows in romanticized portraits of working class folks. He praises them for their often overlooked abilities. If at times, he sounds a bit defensive or over-eager to prove his point, keep in mind that's he's working against a long history of insidious stereotypes of blue collar workers as little more than dull brutes relying mostly on brawn instead of brains. He moves back and forth between personal narrative and historical and sociological analysis with ease.
Just finished teaching this in my developmental writing course. The students, who typically have a weak background in education, really enjoyed reading about other forms of literacy that require just as much, if not more, cognitive processing as traditional school work. Rose is an elegant, even impassioned writer, but never wallows in romanticized portraits of working class folks. He praises them for their often overlooked abilities. If at times, he sounds a bit defensive or over-eager to prove his point, keep in mind that's he's working against a long history of insidious stereotypes of blue collar workers as little more than dull brutes relying mostly on brawn instead of brains. He moves back and forth between personal narrative and historical and sociological analysis with ease.
July 29, 2023
There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
January 31, 2022
A very thought provoking book. There remains beyond the text more in-depth considerations, but it will make you look differently at those you see working with and around you.
October 22, 2025
A qualitative, anecdotal look at the intelligence involved in a variety of blue-collar occupations, with special focus on restaurant service, hair cutting, plumbing, carpentry, wiring and welding. This leads to a more generalized discussion of types of intelligence and the role and organization of vocational education. The author's goal is to get us to understand and appreciate manual intelligence, and get us to rethink the apparent differences between manual and conceptual intelligence.
The author's points were not news to me. I grew up (as the author did) in a solidly blue-collar household, with a father who was a truck mechanic and who built the house we grew up in. My brother followed him into that occupation. I was never the "handy" one in the family (and now I'm a Philosophy professor), but I never lacked an appreciation of the intelligence and value of so-called manual work.
This book got me thinking about my own relation to handiwork, and it turns out I was not as bad in this realm as the contrast might suggest. I have, over the years, designed and built 2 large bookshelves and a large CD shelf. And I have fixed some plumbing problems. I never worked with my dad, as my brother did. But I think I learned from afar the logic of figuring out and fixing things.
This sort of interest carries over into my teaching, in that I am always looking for applications of the topics under discussion that students would understand and appreciate--even in Philosophy classes! And my latest book--Simply Wittgenstein--is filled with applications of his ideas to real-life issues. It bothers me when people teach philosophy as such an abstract topic that most people can see no relevance in it.
The approach of the author, to rethink the relationship between conceptual and applied knowledge, is one I appreciate. But I feel that some universities are taking it too far. My university, Virginia Tech, is in the process of implementing a core curriculum that essentially presupposes that all core courses must have and be taught as having applications to moral issues. I think that is a worthy interest, but it is going too far to require that of all such courses. It pressures teachers into giving lip-service to a topic, instead of focussing on just those cases where it really works. And it suggests that no core courses should be truly abstract/conceptual. So, perhaps the author's perspective can be carried too far.
The author does address the occasional blue-collar prejudice against "book learning." This came to the fore in the recent presidential primary debates when Marco Rubio, in a November 10, 2015, debate, declared "Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers." Apart from the fact that the monetary claim is questionable, it seems an unfortunate swipe at a field that has its own value and importance to culture. In fact my nephew is a professional welder, and so he and I posed for a picture displaying our abilities and shaking hands.
I plan to pass this book on to my hair cutter. She is a very intelligent woman who, however, grew up in a family that owned a salon. I'm not sure of her original aspirations, but she ended up joining this family business. We have great conversations, and I hope she feels appreciated for her intelligence.
The author's points were not news to me. I grew up (as the author did) in a solidly blue-collar household, with a father who was a truck mechanic and who built the house we grew up in. My brother followed him into that occupation. I was never the "handy" one in the family (and now I'm a Philosophy professor), but I never lacked an appreciation of the intelligence and value of so-called manual work.
This book got me thinking about my own relation to handiwork, and it turns out I was not as bad in this realm as the contrast might suggest. I have, over the years, designed and built 2 large bookshelves and a large CD shelf. And I have fixed some plumbing problems. I never worked with my dad, as my brother did. But I think I learned from afar the logic of figuring out and fixing things.
This sort of interest carries over into my teaching, in that I am always looking for applications of the topics under discussion that students would understand and appreciate--even in Philosophy classes! And my latest book--Simply Wittgenstein--is filled with applications of his ideas to real-life issues. It bothers me when people teach philosophy as such an abstract topic that most people can see no relevance in it.
The approach of the author, to rethink the relationship between conceptual and applied knowledge, is one I appreciate. But I feel that some universities are taking it too far. My university, Virginia Tech, is in the process of implementing a core curriculum that essentially presupposes that all core courses must have and be taught as having applications to moral issues. I think that is a worthy interest, but it is going too far to require that of all such courses. It pressures teachers into giving lip-service to a topic, instead of focussing on just those cases where it really works. And it suggests that no core courses should be truly abstract/conceptual. So, perhaps the author's perspective can be carried too far.
The author does address the occasional blue-collar prejudice against "book learning." This came to the fore in the recent presidential primary debates when Marco Rubio, in a November 10, 2015, debate, declared "Welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers." Apart from the fact that the monetary claim is questionable, it seems an unfortunate swipe at a field that has its own value and importance to culture. In fact my nephew is a professional welder, and so he and I posed for a picture displaying our abilities and shaking hands.
I plan to pass this book on to my hair cutter. She is a very intelligent woman who, however, grew up in a family that owned a salon. I'm not sure of her original aspirations, but she ended up joining this family business. We have great conversations, and I hope she feels appreciated for her intelligence.
May 27, 2009
An excellent book. Easy to read, concise, thoughtful and thought-provoking. Rose takes us into the world of the working class and shows how much intelligence and intellect play a part in blue collar and "unskilled" work. In so many ways he articulates ideas I've had for years. It was a real treat to read someone's well-researched authenitication of the ways in which physical labor enhances one's cognitive skills. Definitely on my list of must reads.
The writing is easy to read and articulate. He elucidates his point beautifully. The two shortest chapters --one on plumbers and one on electricians -- are counterintuitively the thinnest and most strained. However both are essential to his main thesis, and their lack is due mainly to the overlap of material most of which he covers in his chapter on carpentry. It's an excellently cohesive work though and well worth the time.
The writing is easy to read and articulate. He elucidates his point beautifully. The two shortest chapters --one on plumbers and one on electricians -- are counterintuitively the thinnest and most strained. However both are essential to his main thesis, and their lack is due mainly to the overlap of material most of which he covers in his chapter on carpentry. It's an excellently cohesive work though and well worth the time.
February 6, 2016
Really enjoyed this vividly written exploration of the life of "manual" work. By exploring in detail the activities of waitresses, plumbers, carpenters - and surgeons! - Rose collapses entrenched distinctions between intellectual and manual labor. As an educator, I valued his attempt to craft a more sophisticated and nuanced vocabulary to described how abstract thought and technical skill fuse into professional competence. For example, rather than describing highly practiced gestures as "automatic" Rose recommends we use the more accurate term "confident." But non-expert readers will also enjoy the "behind the scenes" look at many interesting fields. (I particularly enjoyed the interview with a woman who became a welding instructor.)
October 31, 2014
Explores the intelligence and cognitive skills involved in blue-collar work, and its implications for education and how we organize society. The author focuses first on a variety of different types of jobs, including waitressing, hairstyling, and a number of construction trades. I found the chapters on carpentry and welding especially interesting. The ideas that the author put forward were ones I was already familiar with, so it wasn't a true eye-opener for me, but it was interesting nonetheless. Although the book is ten years old, it remains relevant, and it would be great to see its insights reflected in the system - no such luck yet.
September 20, 2019
I thought this book was going to be like the description, a bit like Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America and Terkel's Working: People Talk about What They Do All Day and How They Feel about What They Do books, but that is not quite the case.
The book addresses the intelligence, the level of the mind while working at blue-collar type jobs. Society has not acknowledged the level of intelligence these people have that do these types of jobs. Mike Rose explains how people's understanding of intelligence has changed over the years, and this too is one area that needs to be modified. It takes the entire book to come to this conclusion, providing several long examples, and several briefly. A couple of the long examples come from his own family, while others from observing high school classes in vocational education. There are other examples as well, ranging from welder, hair dresser to a surgeon.
One of the later chapters delve into the education of students taking the two tracks of vocational verses academic. This part was unexpected for me. Rose explains how this does a great disservice as the students in vocational education route aren't challenged to their full extent and even come to believe their own intelligence is more limited than it may be, or they denounce intelligence as a way of compensating. Students get placed into programs often by income level backgrounds, or parental jobs. Other issues of how the two tracks differ and perpetuate problems are explained. This chapter felt like there were arguments that came before, for those in the education field may be better versed in the discussion. This chapter also felt like the thesis of the book, what the previous chapters were leading towards.
Mike Rose comes at this topic as a scholar in the field of education. He is a professor in education, yet he writes this book in a fairly approachable manner.
While the book was decent, and he took years in research and writing the book, it felt like there was missing quite a lot as well. Most of the book was about only a few job categories and only briefly mention others. It would seem the book would have been stronger with more details on more job areas, take those curiously mentioned and expanded upon, perhaps cutting down some other areas, or not. The book wasn't overly long.
After reading it entirely I would doubt the book would get a large audience outside of the academic world in the education field. I seem to have a large area of curiosity and love learning, so I continued the book where it veered from my primary interest. Certainly there are other people out there like myself, yet educators will likely gain the most from this book.
The book addresses the intelligence, the level of the mind while working at blue-collar type jobs. Society has not acknowledged the level of intelligence these people have that do these types of jobs. Mike Rose explains how people's understanding of intelligence has changed over the years, and this too is one area that needs to be modified. It takes the entire book to come to this conclusion, providing several long examples, and several briefly. A couple of the long examples come from his own family, while others from observing high school classes in vocational education. There are other examples as well, ranging from welder, hair dresser to a surgeon.
One of the later chapters delve into the education of students taking the two tracks of vocational verses academic. This part was unexpected for me. Rose explains how this does a great disservice as the students in vocational education route aren't challenged to their full extent and even come to believe their own intelligence is more limited than it may be, or they denounce intelligence as a way of compensating. Students get placed into programs often by income level backgrounds, or parental jobs. Other issues of how the two tracks differ and perpetuate problems are explained. This chapter felt like there were arguments that came before, for those in the education field may be better versed in the discussion. This chapter also felt like the thesis of the book, what the previous chapters were leading towards.
Mike Rose comes at this topic as a scholar in the field of education. He is a professor in education, yet he writes this book in a fairly approachable manner.
While the book was decent, and he took years in research and writing the book, it felt like there was missing quite a lot as well. Most of the book was about only a few job categories and only briefly mention others. It would seem the book would have been stronger with more details on more job areas, take those curiously mentioned and expanded upon, perhaps cutting down some other areas, or not. The book wasn't overly long.
After reading it entirely I would doubt the book would get a large audience outside of the academic world in the education field. I seem to have a large area of curiosity and love learning, so I continued the book where it veered from my primary interest. Certainly there are other people out there like myself, yet educators will likely gain the most from this book.
July 12, 2021
Rose analyzes the cognitive functions necessary to successfully work in a number of fields that are often considered semi-skilled or unskilled labor, such as waiting tables, hairdressing, plumbing, and auto work. I didn't need convincing that these are all intellectually challenging jobs, as I tried my hand at waitressing and found it mentally and physically exhausting. However, the way he breaks down the skills and thought processes is fascinating, and the implications for "vocational education" or what we now call Career and Technical Education are important. I think Rose's book issues a challenge to teachers, not only in vocational subjects but in all subjects to find ways to engage and develop the minds of all of our students, no matter what their post-secondary plans might be. Additionally, we are all challenged to think more highly of our students on the so-called vocational track and to respect the work of their minds, whether or not we think they are excelling in our subject areas. However, Rose also challenges us as a society to overcome the divide between people who more highly value "book learning" and people who more highly value "real work" - in many ways this divide comes from our own defense mechanisms that come into play when we find some work challenging and perhaps beyond us. Our scorn protects us from feeling stupid or untalented. When we can appreciate all forms of intelligence perhaps we can build a happier society. Of course, Rose says all of this much better than I can, so I highly recommend his fascinating book.
July 22, 2023
Although this book was written in 2004, the message that Mike Rose puts out is still relevant today. We need to start respecting the mental capabilities of manual work. There are a lot of low paying and disregarded professions that need intense eye-hand-brain coordination function that operating at a high cognitive level. Waitressing is way more than simply bringing plates of food to a table of hungry patrons. Plumbing goes way beyond tightening fittings and making sure a toilet flushes. Carpentry is not really about how to swing a hammer and pound a nail. Rose breaks down these professions and more to bring about a full understanding of skills, movements and thinking required to be proficient in this sort of work.
This book is thick with information. I found it slow going in places, but elucidating. Being a former server in restaurants during my college years, I found the chapter on waitressing relevant and very informative. I was able to glean a brightened perspective of the intense prioritization, movement and focus needed to be a successful server. I also spent some time in the trades and could relate to the chapters highlighting them. His examples and the book as a whole was eye-opening. My copy is filled with underlining and notes of information that I can use in my own essays.
This book is thick with information. I found it slow going in places, but elucidating. Being a former server in restaurants during my college years, I found the chapter on waitressing relevant and very informative. I was able to glean a brightened perspective of the intense prioritization, movement and focus needed to be a successful server. I also spent some time in the trades and could relate to the chapters highlighting them. His examples and the book as a whole was eye-opening. My copy is filled with underlining and notes of information that I can use in my own essays.
July 7, 2024
As a basic premise author tries to dispell the myth that the physical work of plumber, carpenter or waitress is "dumb" work, comparing to the "intelligent" work in cubicle.
Even though it is twenty years old, it stays as relevant as ever, in the times of AI acceleration, LLM ubiquity and mass consumption and work in the digital universe.
And I think books like these will get popular, as people will get eventually get disillusioned that physical world still matters and that "digital" and "virtual" is not solution to everything. Moreover, in the world where everyone can get information everywhere, instantly, the ability to work with one's hands will become again an edge on the labor market.
The books itself is well written. Mixes accounts of people working in the "physical" domain, like aforementioned plumbers of waitresses, with the philosophical considerations of manual work, in contrast to the corporate, abstract work in so called knowledge economy.
Because it is both specific and theoretical at the same time, it resonates stronger with the reader than if it was just theoretical dispute.
If you want to read something more ordinary and closer to the daily life than another success story of Jobs, Bezos or Musk (as I'd wanted) this is a good choice.
Even though it is twenty years old, it stays as relevant as ever, in the times of AI acceleration, LLM ubiquity and mass consumption and work in the digital universe.
And I think books like these will get popular, as people will get eventually get disillusioned that physical world still matters and that "digital" and "virtual" is not solution to everything. Moreover, in the world where everyone can get information everywhere, instantly, the ability to work with one's hands will become again an edge on the labor market.
The books itself is well written. Mixes accounts of people working in the "physical" domain, like aforementioned plumbers of waitresses, with the philosophical considerations of manual work, in contrast to the corporate, abstract work in so called knowledge economy.
Because it is both specific and theoretical at the same time, it resonates stronger with the reader than if it was just theoretical dispute.
If you want to read something more ordinary and closer to the daily life than another success story of Jobs, Bezos or Musk (as I'd wanted) this is a good choice.
October 20, 2017
For the author's intention - this book is a well-written and thoroughly researched account of how work plays into the lives our diverse American people. Mike Rose explores a variety of occupations in the American workforce, from hairstylists, waiters, and teachers - to plumbers, carpenters, and automobile paint detailers. He offers an intimate view of his family's personal working life, and demonstrates how even the most menial job could perhaps require a certain genius intuition for it to result in a job well-done.
One take-away from the book that I found to be profound is about the young lady who entered the vocation of welding right out of high school, eventually developing an expertise in the vocation and becoming a teacher. She describes the importance of both intelligence and demonstrable skill in the vocation of welding. It is "to gain through tangible, demonstrable skill the ability to exercise some control, to give some direction to things, to feel security within reach - something people born into economic security cannot fully appreciate (128)." In this passage I think the author does a great job in relating vocational skill to hope.
One take-away from the book that I found to be profound is about the young lady who entered the vocation of welding right out of high school, eventually developing an expertise in the vocation and becoming a teacher. She describes the importance of both intelligence and demonstrable skill in the vocation of welding. It is "to gain through tangible, demonstrable skill the ability to exercise some control, to give some direction to things, to feel security within reach - something people born into economic security cannot fully appreciate (128)." In this passage I think the author does a great job in relating vocational skill to hope.
December 11, 2025
3.5 stars rounded up
read this book for a class book report on how people learn, and it helped inspire some additional interviews + possible directions for future research that i'd be very interested in, but the tone of the text was a bit dry/overly technical at times for my liking...
that said, a lot of the themes and methods identified in this book are ones i'd like to come back to in the future, and i was especially sad to read that the author had passed away in 2021 as he seems like he'd have been a great mentor/advisor :')
read this book for a class book report on how people learn, and it helped inspire some additional interviews + possible directions for future research that i'd be very interested in, but the tone of the text was a bit dry/overly technical at times for my liking...
that said, a lot of the themes and methods identified in this book are ones i'd like to come back to in the future, and i was especially sad to read that the author had passed away in 2021 as he seems like he'd have been a great mentor/advisor :')
December 15, 2016
This book is not a "how-to" guide; it is a celebration. O! I sing in praise of the working class, of sweat and blue collars, of physical laborers! Because brawn never comes without brains, and people who work are people first.
3.5 stars out of 5. Impassioned study, in the vein of Studs Terkel, delivered with energy and emotion.
3.5 stars out of 5. Impassioned study, in the vein of Studs Terkel, delivered with energy and emotion.
January 2, 2018
There's so much to love about this book, particularly the personal background that Rose brings to it. More than this, however, are the ends to which he uses his fundamental claim. Rather than stopping short at calling our attention to the disconnect between how we view "vocational work/education," Rose concludes with some emphatically argued suggestions about the consequences of such thinking and how we might do better. I don't think there's ever been a more important time to read this book.
February 16, 2023
A deep and thoughtful study of the value in working class jobs. Mike Rose takes his audience on a journey through various trades and the different kinds of intelligence each one requires. This is definitely a worthwhile read that will alter the way in which one views the necessary skillsets of those who work a trade.
July 15, 2017
Well-written, balanced examination of our tendency to overlook the cognitive & intellectual demands of skilled trades and so-called "unskilled" labor. Thoughtful blend of academic research, observation, and story-telling.
October 21, 2021
Listened to an interview with Mike Rose on NPR and thought the book would be an interesting read. Absolutely loved the content and framing, but personally struggled with Mikes writing style and sentence structure at times.
December 24, 2021
I had to read this book slowly, but I'm glad I did. I learned so much about intelligence, the narrow way we tend to perceive it, and the social and economic consequences of that perception. The stories of a variety of individuals in a variety of work settings brought the analyses to life.
September 21, 2022
started it for english in college, re read it a second time for enjoyment and it’s really an interesting read!! it’s full of ideas and things i hadn’t really thought in depth about, really interesting!!
December 3, 2018
Really, really liked the idea. Wish he had probed deeper.
July 3, 2016
I picked up this book after Elise read it, which followed us listening to an interview with Rose on the "On Being" radio show. Rose is a professor of education at UCLA, and is two degrees of separation from Elise in academic terms (he was her advisor's mentor). His work focuses on vocational education, and this book is on that topic.
The general idea of this book is something like the following. Blue-collar jobs require a variety of meaningful cognitive skills, which are generally not recognized, either in our culture at large or in vocational education programs specifically. The failure to recognize these skills means that these positions, and by extension these people, are undervalued by our society, and that the vocational programs that we create do not serve them very well in the sense of helping them to find meaning and value in work.
I will not go into too much depth summarizing the types of cognitive skills he is talking about here, but to give some of the flavor, one of my favorite examples was from the chapter on hairdressers. Very often, as we all know, an interaction between a client and a hairdresser will start with the client showing the hairdresser a picture of a hairstyle and saying that he/she wants something "like that." As one of Rose's interviewees points out, it would generally end poorly if the stylist simply took this at face value and tried to replicate the image. Instead, she says, the client is usually implicitly after some feeling that is evoked by the image more so than the specific appearance, and it is the job of the hairstylist both to identify what this core sense is, and determine how to translate it into the specific case at hand. This is a complex task involving both emotional intelligence (for the first step, how to "read" the client) and cognitive intelligence (for the second step, how to implement an abstract form in a concrete instance). She also links this objective to the stereotypical "chit-chat" that goes on between hairdresser and client, indicating that this is an important part of how the hairdresser develops an ability to interpret the client's expressed desires. I had never thought of this possibility before, but it made a lot of sense when I read it.
The book has a strong family relation to Studs Terkel's "Working," which communicates similar ideas in a much more implicit way. I thought Rose's book was convincing and powerful, and shared the obvious humanism of Terkel's book. Significantly, I think Rose avoids some of the common pitfalls of upper-class authors writing about a subject like this. He doesn't make the book a paean to the lost values of craft, and doesn't soft-pedal the fact that a lifetime of blue-collar work can take a brutal toll on a person. He avoids the alt-elitism of a book like "The World Beyond Your Head," which argues for valuing manual labor by focusing on rare ultra-master craftsmen and ignoring all of the people who install toilets. Not to bring everything back to Bernie Sanders, but I think it is often lost in our political discourse today that over half of working-age Americans don't have a college degree. It is important that we remember this (people in the elite classes may not know anyone without a college degree), and think about the value of their work to our society, and how we can best recognize that.
Related to this, I also found it refreshing that Rose gives fairly equal attention to the traditionally female blue-collar jobs of hairdresser and waitress--as books like TWBYH tend to focus on macho work like motorcycle repair, I would guess because these already benefit from some positive valence in our culture due to patriarchy.
Rose is obviously very intelligent and a good writer, but I think his book is further enhanced by the way he brings his own personal history into it. The chapter on waitresses focuses primarily on Rose's own mother, who was a lifelong waitress, and there is also a fair amount of discussion of Rose's uncle, who worked as an industrial laborer in railyards. Rose makes it clear that he got interested in this topic in part from reflecting on his own mother's life, and I think the book is stronger for the fact that he doesn't assume some false pose of impartiality. I can see how this would be difficult for an academic writer to do, and I only wish more would do it!
The general idea of this book is something like the following. Blue-collar jobs require a variety of meaningful cognitive skills, which are generally not recognized, either in our culture at large or in vocational education programs specifically. The failure to recognize these skills means that these positions, and by extension these people, are undervalued by our society, and that the vocational programs that we create do not serve them very well in the sense of helping them to find meaning and value in work.
I will not go into too much depth summarizing the types of cognitive skills he is talking about here, but to give some of the flavor, one of my favorite examples was from the chapter on hairdressers. Very often, as we all know, an interaction between a client and a hairdresser will start with the client showing the hairdresser a picture of a hairstyle and saying that he/she wants something "like that." As one of Rose's interviewees points out, it would generally end poorly if the stylist simply took this at face value and tried to replicate the image. Instead, she says, the client is usually implicitly after some feeling that is evoked by the image more so than the specific appearance, and it is the job of the hairstylist both to identify what this core sense is, and determine how to translate it into the specific case at hand. This is a complex task involving both emotional intelligence (for the first step, how to "read" the client) and cognitive intelligence (for the second step, how to implement an abstract form in a concrete instance). She also links this objective to the stereotypical "chit-chat" that goes on between hairdresser and client, indicating that this is an important part of how the hairdresser develops an ability to interpret the client's expressed desires. I had never thought of this possibility before, but it made a lot of sense when I read it.
The book has a strong family relation to Studs Terkel's "Working," which communicates similar ideas in a much more implicit way. I thought Rose's book was convincing and powerful, and shared the obvious humanism of Terkel's book. Significantly, I think Rose avoids some of the common pitfalls of upper-class authors writing about a subject like this. He doesn't make the book a paean to the lost values of craft, and doesn't soft-pedal the fact that a lifetime of blue-collar work can take a brutal toll on a person. He avoids the alt-elitism of a book like "The World Beyond Your Head," which argues for valuing manual labor by focusing on rare ultra-master craftsmen and ignoring all of the people who install toilets. Not to bring everything back to Bernie Sanders, but I think it is often lost in our political discourse today that over half of working-age Americans don't have a college degree. It is important that we remember this (people in the elite classes may not know anyone without a college degree), and think about the value of their work to our society, and how we can best recognize that.
Related to this, I also found it refreshing that Rose gives fairly equal attention to the traditionally female blue-collar jobs of hairdresser and waitress--as books like TWBYH tend to focus on macho work like motorcycle repair, I would guess because these already benefit from some positive valence in our culture due to patriarchy.
Rose is obviously very intelligent and a good writer, but I think his book is further enhanced by the way he brings his own personal history into it. The chapter on waitresses focuses primarily on Rose's own mother, who was a lifelong waitress, and there is also a fair amount of discussion of Rose's uncle, who worked as an industrial laborer in railyards. Rose makes it clear that he got interested in this topic in part from reflecting on his own mother's life, and I think the book is stronger for the fact that he doesn't assume some false pose of impartiality. I can see how this would be difficult for an academic writer to do, and I only wish more would do it!
September 8, 2008
An old professor of mine recommended I read this book mostly for how it dealt with the methods of observing and understanding when others are learning. This is a big part of my research, how people learn and what they learn and how they use that new knowledge, etc., but the content of the book was also enlightening. I have faced in my life, this dichotomy between blue and white collar, between “smart” and “useful” or other such comparisons. And I have disliked them. When people say (as the bf has been known to espouse) “You’re book smart and I’m dumb” I get really angry. I get angry because as Rose notes here, learning is a natural part of what we do, and anyone who is good at anything is smart, is using their brains.
So Rose spent a few years observing and interviewing dozens of people in a variety of supposedly low-skill or med-skill as well as high-skill occupations, from waitresses to surgeons, factory workers to academics. He was trying to understand what were the mental processes that differed between blue collar and white collar workers. He quickly found that this is a false difference—that physical work and mental work are not necessarily separate (except that those of us glued to computers are pretty physically pathetic). I am reminded by the difference in school teams between the talented stars and the average players. You didn’t have to use your mind when you were talented, you could jump higher and run faster and if you made errors because you didn’t know exactly where to throw the ball, so be it, you made up for it with your next hit. Average kids, and below-average ones like me, didn’t have that option. If I wanted to compete with the faster kids, I had to be smarter: I had to make educated guesses by the batter’s stance where she would likely hit the ball and adjust accordingly, I had to know in advance what I would do if the ball came to me on the ground or in the air because I didn’t have the gift of lightening reflexes and a lazer arm. All these brains and I still was never going to play at a high level, but the ones who did (look at your favorite good, long-careered athlete) had both the physical talent AND the mental game.
That’s basically what Rose found in this study. That when you look at how people use their minds while accomplishing tasks or solving problems (Rose argues that “To work is to solve problems” p200), there is great similarity across a variety of professions. The surgeon who learns how to feel under organs she can’t see to determine abnormalities is little different from the plumber who learns to feel the pipes when she can’t see them in the wall. Sure, the surgeon has someone’s life at stake, but how much is her brain behaving differently than the plumber’s? This is a simplified argument, but it is the heart of Rose’s book—that we ought to rearrange how we value certain types of work because inherently the plumber isn’t necessarily dumber than the surgeon.
So Rose spent a few years observing and interviewing dozens of people in a variety of supposedly low-skill or med-skill as well as high-skill occupations, from waitresses to surgeons, factory workers to academics. He was trying to understand what were the mental processes that differed between blue collar and white collar workers. He quickly found that this is a false difference—that physical work and mental work are not necessarily separate (except that those of us glued to computers are pretty physically pathetic). I am reminded by the difference in school teams between the talented stars and the average players. You didn’t have to use your mind when you were talented, you could jump higher and run faster and if you made errors because you didn’t know exactly where to throw the ball, so be it, you made up for it with your next hit. Average kids, and below-average ones like me, didn’t have that option. If I wanted to compete with the faster kids, I had to be smarter: I had to make educated guesses by the batter’s stance where she would likely hit the ball and adjust accordingly, I had to know in advance what I would do if the ball came to me on the ground or in the air because I didn’t have the gift of lightening reflexes and a lazer arm. All these brains and I still was never going to play at a high level, but the ones who did (look at your favorite good, long-careered athlete) had both the physical talent AND the mental game.
That’s basically what Rose found in this study. That when you look at how people use their minds while accomplishing tasks or solving problems (Rose argues that “To work is to solve problems” p200), there is great similarity across a variety of professions. The surgeon who learns how to feel under organs she can’t see to determine abnormalities is little different from the plumber who learns to feel the pipes when she can’t see them in the wall. Sure, the surgeon has someone’s life at stake, but how much is her brain behaving differently than the plumber’s? This is a simplified argument, but it is the heart of Rose’s book—that we ought to rearrange how we value certain types of work because inherently the plumber isn’t necessarily dumber than the surgeon.
Read
February 5, 2009Through in-depth research, Rose, a member of the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies demonstrates that cultural stereotyping has invariably underestimated blue-collar workers' intelligence and accomplishments. Rose quotes a policy analyst: "How do you honor a student's construction worker father while creating the conditions for his child to not be a construction worker?" Combining memoir (his mother was a waitress) with case studies, he also provides an excellent overview of the academic-vocational divide, though at times his overly scholarly descriptions of the work environment reflect this division. Generally fast paced and never dogmatic, however, Rose has certainly drawn an original portrait of America at work.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
October 18, 2012
Mike Rose's "Lives on the Boundary" was one of my favorite books coming out of college. In "The Mind at Work" he sets out with the idea that so-called blue-collar jobs have a level of cognitive intelligence that we don't always appreciate or highlight.
As someone whose grandfather spent his working life in a paper mill, I loved the premise of this book. It didn't have the readability of "Lives on the Boundary" and I was bogged down in chapter one. I can appreciate the skill of a waitress, but I don't know if I need 30 pages about it. Admittedly, I might have a hard time finishing this one cover-to-cover.
As someone whose grandfather spent his working life in a paper mill, I loved the premise of this book. It didn't have the readability of "Lives on the Boundary" and I was bogged down in chapter one. I can appreciate the skill of a waitress, but I don't know if I need 30 pages about it. Admittedly, I might have a hard time finishing this one cover-to-cover.
July 25, 2014
This book refutes the idea that people work either with their hands (blue collar jobs) or their brains (white collar jobs). He interviews a waitress and a welder and visits classrooms where students are learning to build cabinets and run wires and install toilets, and he shows how intelligence is necessary for competence at any kind of work. He talks about different kinds of intelligence a la Howard Gardiner. The profiles are really interesting to read. Even though the book is written for an academic audience, I found it very accessible and would recommend it to anyone interested in adult learning especially.
December 31, 2015
I had to read this book for school and it was a humbling read. It breaks down the idea of "unskilled" and "low-wage" jobs, showing that there is an intertwining of cognitive and physical ability that is used in work; even the janitor and the waitress use both in tandem.
I liked the various ideas expressed and in particular the approach to math. I was taking a math class while I had to read this book and found this line:
"Abstraction is the essence of mathematics; the source of its power is its independence from the material world." p. 98
This is one of the best non-fiction books I've read this year. I learned a lot from it and it makes me see my jobs slightly differently.
I liked the various ideas expressed and in particular the approach to math. I was taking a math class while I had to read this book and found this line:
"Abstraction is the essence of mathematics; the source of its power is its independence from the material world." p. 98
This is one of the best non-fiction books I've read this year. I learned a lot from it and it makes me see my jobs slightly differently.
February 23, 2016
Industrial and labor intensive work can also be knowledge work. I remember an op-ed piece in Newsweek sometime during the late 1980's where a Phi Beta Kappa from a major university was actively working on an assembly line and was proud to be there. He ultimately tired of explaining to people why, as a college graduate he worked in a "union" job. Well, he enjoyed it and wrote brilliantly about it. I have witnessed too many people attend college under the misconception that schooling equals education. This is an outstanding book dedicated to people who "work" and actively engage their mind while at work.
July 27, 2010
An interesting defense of the vocational arts. While many of his chapters are engaging and I do sympathize with his call to make high school vocational training more pertinent to our students, he tends to overplay it just a little bit. Maybe because I come from a western and Mormon background where everyone’s supposed to do something with their hands, I don’t see there being some intense class distinction between head and hand. He peters out a little towards the end, but the individual chapters on waitressing and hair dressing, plumbing and welding are really engaging.
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