Q&A with Mike Rose “The Mind at Work” Revisits Cognitive Demands of Service Industries BY JOANIE HARMON
Although the 10th anniversary edition of Mike Rose’s “The Mind at Work” was released in 2014, his scholarly look at workers in service industries is all the more poignant as these professionals continue to serve the public through a global pandemic. Professor Rose’s writing, imbued with his signature humanity and grace, tells the story of “blue collar” professions and the individuals who keep society moving and thriving.
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ike Rose’s stature as an expert on the cognitive, linguistic, and socio-historical factors that affect engagement with written language, reading and writing pedagogies for underserved student populations, and the educational histories of non-traditional college students and the barriers and opportunities they encounter, emerges from his blue-collar background as the son of a Los Angeles waitress and the nephew of railroad and auto workers in the Rust Belt of the northeastern United States. Rose skillfully mined these humble beginnings for his 2005 treatise on the intellectual accomplishments of the American worker, “The Mind at Work” (New York: Penguin Books. 2nd Edition, 2014). The book has been lauded by no less than Studs Terkel as an “eloquent tribute to our working men and women.” Howard Gardner, author of “Changing Minds,” has noted that, “Thanks to Mike Rose’s impressive eye, the accomplishments of these workers are now visible.”
8 UCLA Ed&IS SPRING 2022