The Mind at Work Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker

by Rose, Mike

• ISBN13: 9780670032822
• ISBN10: 0670032824
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781101174944
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-08-03
• Publisher: Viking Adult
• More Book Details

Summary

In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimedand Studs Terkel’s Working, The Mind at Workis 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 Workaward-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.

Author Biography

Mike Rose, a member of the faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, has written a number of books and articles on language and literacy, including Lives on the Boundary: The Struggles and Achievements of America-'s Underprepared.

In 1997 his book Possible Lives won the prestigious Gawemeyer Award in Education and the Common-wealth Club of California Award for Literary Excellence in Nonfiction.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Mind and Work	xiii
1 The Working Life of a Waitress	1	(30)
2 Styling Hair	31	(25)
3 The Intelligence of Plumbing	56	(11)
4 A Vocabulary of Carpentry	67	(33)
5 Reflective Technique: Electrical Wiring and Construction	100	(16)
6 Two Lives: A Welder and a Foreman	116	(25)
7 Rethinking Hand and Brain	141	(26)
8 Hand and Brain in School: The Paradox of Vocational Education	167	(28)
Conclusion: Working Life	195	(22)
Afterword: On Method	217	(8)
Acknowledgments	225	(4)
Notes	229

Excerpts

INTRODUCTION: MIND AND WORK I grew up a witness to the intelligence of the waitress in motion, the reflective welder, the strategy of the guy on the assembly line. This, then, is something I know: the thought it takes to do physical work. Such work put food on our table, gave shape to stories of affliction and ability, framed how I saw the world. I come from a family of immigrants who, with two exceptions, did not finish high school, and who worked in blue-collar or service jobs all their lives. I did not do so well in school myself, spent several years in the vocational track, and squeaked my way into a small college on probation?the first in the family to go beyond high school. Measures of intellectual ability and assumptions about it are woven throughout this history. So I?ve been thinking about this business of intelligence for a long time: the way we decide who?s smart and who isn?t, the way the work someone does feeds into that judgment, and the effect such judgment has on our sense of who we are and what we can do.It was tough work that my family did. I would later come to understand the dynamics of occupational status and social class, but I could sense early on how difficult the work was, and that without it, we?d starve. I also saw that people knew things through work. And they used what they learned. This experience was all very specific to me, not abstract, emerging from the lived moments of work I had witnessed, from all sorts of objects and images, from sound and smell, from rhythms of the body. These sensory particulars stay with me, resonant. There was a table covered with slick plastic in the center of my grandmother?s kitchen. Anyone who visited drank a cup of coffee there, wooden chair turned sideways to talk to her as she cooked. All meals were eaten at this table. My uncle Frank, a welder for the Pennsylvania Railroad, has come in from work, soiled denim, the smell of machinist?s oil in it, his face smeared with soot. He washes at the kitchen sink, sleeves rolled up, scrubbing his arms, full lather, angling them under the faucet. He settles in at the table; there?s a radio at its edge, and he turns it on to hear the evening news. My grandmother sets a large plate of steaming macaroni before him, deep red sauce; there is a bowl of chops, cooked earlier, in the center of the table. Frank?s hands are huge, and as he talks to us?a deep voice that can quickly rise in amazement?he tears off a big chunk of Italian bread and begins to eat with a focus and capacity that made its way into the comic tales told about him by his brothers, stories I would acquire through the hearing. After a while, he pushes the chair back, but not too far, unbuttons the top of his trousers, says he?s eaten way too much, dear Lord, and reaches for a chop, or for that loaf of bread, and leans in again, a deep pleasure against the bitter cold and exhaustion of the roundhouse. Frank was a guy who made it a point to know things; he read a lot and inquired until he understood how something worked. It felt good to be with him. I remember him, his well-spoken voice, guiding me through the Railroader?s Museum: cutaways of running gear; diagrams and technical information on steam, diesel, and electric locomotives; photos of wooden freight cars, cabooses, the interiors of luxury passenger cars; posed workmen; lots of repair equipment; an operational model railroad. I knew of Frank?s many complaints about the railroad: layoffs and erratic scheduling, the brutal hours, the biting cold or sweltering heat, the burns over his arms and legs. But Frank also saw himself as a ?railroad man,? someone who had made his contribution to this major American industry. Doing a job well mattered. ?Work hard,? he wrote to his son, away in the army. ?No one likes a half-assed man.? One of the moments I remember from that day at the museum, a simple but lasting one, is Frank standing before a display case, pointing to some