Blue Collar Brilliance Analysis
Synthesis Essay
My college professor asked our class one day, What is the first thing that comes to your mind when
you think of intellectualism? My immediate response consisted of text books, school, and multiple
hours of studying. However, after reading a few articles covering different viewpoints on
intellectualism, I had a change of thought. Intellectualism within schools, and society today falls under
one category: the book smarts. Many people think others are intelligent because of their degrees, good
paying jobs, or the level of education they ve received. However, these are not the only contributing
factors which lead to intelligence. The two articles, Hidden Intellectualism by Gerald Graff, and Blue
Collar Brilliance, by Mike ... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
This way of teaching may seem like the easiest, most efficient route, but it is not necessarily the most
practical. Based on Gerald Graff s personal experiences, he has come to the conclusion that schools
and colleges are missing an opportunity when they do not encourage students to take their
nonacademic interests as objects of academic study, (Graff 270). In other words, schools should start
to focus on more extracurricular activities and sports, and transferring that passion into more scholarly
subjects. Coming from a professor at the University of Chicago, who initially claimed himself to be an
anti intellect, this statement shows the true significance of non educational activities and how they are
equally valuable to other things considered more intellectual. Likewise, many blue collared job
individuals are looked down upon by the eyes of society, due to not valuing non academic work. Blue
collar jobs typically are jobs that consist of any manual labor, these jobs include: Plumbers, servers,
electricians, etc. These jobs tend to be viewed as low class, and unintelligent. On the other hand, jobs
that are not blue collar jobs such as white collar jobs, tend to be more professional and higher class.
This misconception is a problem with society, and is touched upon in Rose s article. Mike Rose s
mother, and uncle both work blue collar jobs, inspiring his dis agreeance in the idea that Intelligence is
closely associated with formal education the type of schooling a person has...and most people seem to
move comfortably from that notion to a belief that work requiring less schooling requires less
intelligence, (Rose 276). Mike s mother, Rosie quit school in seventh grade and worked as a waitress
acquiring skills that [...] demands of both body and brain, (Rose 274). This shows even though Rosie
does not have an academic,
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