Mike Rose's Blog

Rags to Riches, Republican Style

2012-01-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

This commentary appeared in the August 6 issue of Inside Higher Ed, and I reprint it here.* * *In just about every speech that President Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan give on the subject, the primary purpose they cite for education, and for education reform, is an economic one. The same is true from statehouses to local school boards. We send our kids to

The Smithsonian of Basic Skills

2010-08-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

Despite a childhood of incantations and incense, of holy cards and stories of crutches being tossed, I don’t believe in miracles. So it is with a mix of sadness and exasperation that I’ve witnessed a language of miracles – along with a search for academic cure-alls

Portraits of Thinking: The Manual and Mental in General Surgery

2009-06-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

I’m reading Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, which has been getting a wide reception. These last few months have also seen the release in paperback of Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman. And, by the luck of publication schedules, an essay of mine drawn from The Mind at Work, came out two weeks ago in The American Scholar. These have different orientations and goals, but share an

Portraits of Thinking: Two Primary-Grade Teachers

2009-06-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Here is another story about cognition in action, an account of two primary-grade teachers. In this portrait (and one to follow in a few weeks), I want to call attention to the thought involved in good teaching. In our current policy environment, “qualified teachers” are rightly championed, but there is little discussion of teaching itself. The teacher becomes the mediating mechanism between

Portraits of Thinking: An Account of a Common Laborer

2009-05-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

For the sixth story about cognition in action, I want to go back into history and reflect on the infamous description of a man named Schmidt, a common laborer in Frederick Winslow Taylor’s 1911 The Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor’s portrayal of Schmidt reveals an undemocratic and contradictory American attitude toward physical work, one that carries with it strong biases about

Portraits of Thinking: Composing a Poem in Special Ed

2009-05-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

There have been a lot of posts over the last few weeks, and I want to continue the discussion about education policy. I’m writing something now, but need a little more time to track down some facts. So let me offer another portrait from a classroom that displays the kind of teaching and learning that has been the driving force behind our ongoing discussion of education policy.This scene is from a

Readers Comment on Education Policy and Educational Possibility

2009-04-24T13:59:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a while since I’ve responded to the many posts on this blog, and I apologize. My entries during that time included a commentary on the paucity of deep knowledge about teaching and learning in the formation of education policy (“‘Reform,’ ‘Accountability,’ and the Absence of Schoolhouse Knowledge in Education Policy’”), a reflection on cognition and diversity (1/27/09), and a

Portraits of Thinking: Science In a First-Grade Classroom

2009-04-03T10:35:00.000-07:00

Here is a fourth story about cognition in action, a spontaneous science lesson in a first-grade classroom in inner-city Baltimore. For those of you who missed the previous entries where I discuss the purpose of these portraits of thinking, I’ll repeat two introductory paragraphs now. If you did read the earlier entries, you can skip right to the story of Stephanie Terry and her students, which

Portraits of Thinking: A College Freshman Writer

2009-03-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here is a third story about cognition in action, an excerpt from a tutoring session with a college freshman. For those of you who missed the previous entries where I discuss the purpose of these portraits of thinking, I’ll repeat two introductory paragraphs now. If you did read the earlier entries, you can skip right to the story of Suzette, which is drawn from Lives on the Boundary.As I’ve

Portraits of Thinking: A Novice Cabinetmaker

2009-03-05T13:40:00.000-08:00

Here is a second story about cognition in action, a glimpse at a young man developing skills as a cabinetmaker. For those of you who missed the previous entry where I discuss the purpose of these portraits of thinking, I’ll repeat two introductory paragraphs now. If you did read the earlier entry, you can skip right to the story of Felipe, which is drawn from The Mind at Work.As I’ve been

Portraits of Thinking: A Test Taker

2009-02-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

I want to continue the discussion of cognition, and to do so through a series of portraits drawn from the writing I’ve done over the years.As I’ve been arguing during the year of this blog’s existence—and for some time before—we tend to think too narrowly about intelligence, and that narrow thinking has affected the way we judge each other, organize work, and define ability and achievement in

Cognition and Diversity

2009-01-27T13:46:00.000-08:00

Last summer the Conference on College Composition and Communication (which is part of the National Council of Teachers of English) asked me to contribute to their blog on diversity. What I wrote for CCCC resonates with issues that have been emerging on this blog, so I’m reprinting, with some editing, my post below. As its name suggests, CCCC’s primary focus is on college-level writing instruction

“Reform,” “Accountability,” and the Absence of Schoolhouse Knowledge in Education Policy

2009-01-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

Over the last few months on this blog I have been wishing for a politics that is more educational, more worthy of the citizens in a democracy. Well, wouldn’t you know it, some of the most uneducational political discourse of the last month or so emerged around the selection of Barack Obama’s Secretary of Education. I hope this is not a sign of the national discussion of education to come.One

My Readers Weigh In on Work, Intelligence, Education, Politics, Hope

2008-12-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

I spent the morning rereading the comments on my eight entries spanning August to November. The entries concern work, education, opportunity, and politics—and most of them were in some way linked to the presidential election. It was a nice, quiet morning, a little brisk but warm at the desk by the garden window. There were 31 reader posts, some a sentence or two long, others paragraphs and

President Obama: Bring Back the Fireside Chats

2008-11-18T14:43:00.000-08:00

This will be the last of my entries on the election, though not the last on the general topic of politics and education. I’m going to pick that up again in a few weeks.I wrote this call on President-elect Obama to bring back FDR-style Fireside Chats a few days before the election, finally coming to believe (cautiously) the national polls. The piece is quickly becoming dated, however, as FDR

On Opportunity…and a Tip of the Hat to Studs Terkel

2008-11-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

My last entry comparing the McCain and Obama education plans centered on educational opportunity, and this entry, my first since the election, deals with opportunity as well. I found myself again dwelling on the word when Barack Obama used it in his acceptance speech. Maybe now is a good time, in light of his election, to reflect on this core American notion. It is a complicated one, worthy of

Education and Opportunity: Rosie’s Dream

2008-10-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

We’ve received some thoughtful posts on Politics and Knowledge ’08, and I hope to continue the conversation soon.For the moment, though, I want to send along an opinion piece published on Sunday, 10/19/08, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in which I compare the McCain and Obama education plans. If you find it useful, please feel free to circulate it.Last week, I did an interview for the Huffington

Politics and Knowledge '08

2008-10-09T14:37:00.000-07:00

First, some catching up.There have been a number of posts in response to the last four entries (Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote; The Intelligence of the Waitress in Motion; Politics as Teaching: The Case of Palin, Obama, and Community Organizing; Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote, Part Two). A number of them offered stories about parents or relatives who also worked

Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote, Part Two

2008-09-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

In my entry for 08/08/08 "Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote" I said that I was trying to fashion these ideas into an opinion piece. Well, I finally did, and I offer it below. It appeared in the Christian Science Monitor on 09/11/08 (as "Blue-Collar America is Smarter Than You May Think").LOS ANGELES - "They treat us like mules," the guy installing my washer tells me, his eyes narrowing

Politics as Teaching: The Case of Palin, Obama, and Community Organizing

2008-09-08T09:40:00.001-07:00

Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin had great fun – and made political hay – last week by ridiculing Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer. They did so by ridiculing community organizing itself. Campaigning in Pennsylvania, Obama noted that such work matters to the people whose lives are affected by it. Governor Palin continued the ridicule as she hit the campaign trail.I want to use this

The Intelligence of the Waitress in Motion

2008-08-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Labor Day is almost here, so I’d like to stick with the theme of work a while longer. I’m reprinting below a tribute I wrote for my mother who worked in restaurants all her adult life.This originally appeared several years ago in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.***The restaurant was my mother’s laboratory of human relations and the place where she put her quick and inquisitive mind to work. I would

Work, Intelligence, and the Blue-Collar Vote

2008-08-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

As we head into August, I would like to orient some of the entries on this blog toward the election. So we’ll consider education, work, and social policy with an eye on November 2. I’ll begin with a revision of an opinion piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Times a while back. I’m convinced – though I haven’t fully worked out the argument – that one way to bridge the cultural and emotional divide

One More Round on Non-Traditional College Students: Teaching Matters

2008-07-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

Sparked by the article in the June Atlantic Monthly, “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” my last three entries on this blog have dealt with teaching non-traditional college students and, more specifically, with teaching literature and remedial writing. Readers responded with close to 35 comments, many of them long, all of them thoughtful. Collectively, they contained assignments and techniques,

Teaching Remedial Writing

2008-07-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

The discussion of underprepared college students over the last few posts leads me to one more entry. This is on teaching remedial writing. I suggested last month that there were a lot of other ways Professor X in that Atlantic Monthly article could have achieved his educational goals. Here is one approach – and I’ll begin it with a student profile different in kind from the ones Professor X

More on Teaching "Non-Traditional" (Or Any) Students, With a Focus on James Joyce's "Araby"

2008-06-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

There was a lot of thought-provoking response to my last entry (“On Portraying the ‘Non-Traditional’ College Student”), and so I would like to continue the discussion this week. A number of people who posted, and some who contacted me outside of the blog, wrote letters to Atlantic Monthly about the article (“In the Basement of the Ivory Tower,” by Professor X). I wrote one too. Editors will

On Portraying the “Non-Traditional” College Student

2008-06-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Since I began this blog a few months back, we have been discussing the purpose of schooling, particularly, but not solely, public education, K-12. This week, I would like to shift the focus to a different population, though the issue of the purpose of education is still involved.Several people forwarded to me an article that appeared in the June Atlantic Monthly entitled “In the Basement of the

The Personal is Cognitive: The Human Side of Learning

2008-05-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back, I asked readers what positive things about their schooling stand out in memory. I’ve also been asking friends and acquaintances. It’s interesting how often a particular teacher is mentioned, even a particular moment with a particular teacher. I just read a study on dropping out, in which the researchers interviewed mostly Latino ninth graders in five California high schools.

Sitting at the Kitchen Table: One More Round on “Why Go to School”

2008-05-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

Again, I have to say that I’m humbled by the thoughtfulness of the readers’ responses. In writing about the impediments to robust, humane schooling, readers mention the ill-effects of high-stakes assessment and narrow notions of achievement; centralized, top-down administrative control; the size of schools; and a hyper-competitive culture that turns education into a mad scramble for advantage.

Further Reflections on “Why Go to School?”

2008-04-22T15:51:00.001-07:00

Several friends of mine who have been reading the blog commented on how comprehensive and thoughtful readers’ posts have been. It’s true. So, then, imagine a conversation about education on a broader level – regional, national – a conversation that takes its time, that involves a range of topics, that collectively gets us to think about the many purposes school can and should have in a complex

Why Go to School?

2008-04-07T17:23:00.000-07:00

I want to continue and broaden the discussion of what school is for. We have been focusing on public education, but let’s open the lens and ask the basic question: Why do we educate – through public or private institutions? Why do we yearly go through the hugely expensive and culturally monumental ritual of sending young people to school?This is the question we need to "address on a national

Education, the Media, and the Public Sphere

2008-03-27T10:40:00.000-07:00

I am so pleased to see the posts on this issue of the purpose of schooling. I’m continuing to think and write about the issue myself, and I hope this blog becomes a place for lots of people to exchange ideas about the reasons we educate in a democracy. Let me also invite readers who teach in postsecondary settings, job training programs, adult literacy centers, etc. to join in. The discussion

Problems With Subscribing to This Blog

2008-03-21T16:52:00.001-07:00

Dear Readers,It seems that some readers have had trouble in the past subscribing to this blog, but that is now fixed. If you have had trouble, could you please re-subscribe.

Democratic Education, the Election, and No Child Left Behind

2008-03-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

I am taken by Deb’s post about influencing the political discourse in this terribly important election year. Her call resonates with other recent posts (for example, Jessica’s). There are people in education who have been talking to key political players–often concerning NCLB–but many more of us need to e-mail our politicians, write letters to the editor, write first-person opinion pieces for

Further Thoughts on the Purpose of Public Schools

2008-03-06T11:24:00.001-08:00

I want to offer a response to the comments as of 3/5/08. I’m struck by their thoughtfulness and passion, and I’m grateful for them. I hope the future of this blog lives up to them. Some of the comments express a tension familiar to many of us concerned about education: a desire to defend schools and teachers, yet anger over how awful some teaching and schools can be. One

The Purpose of Public Schools Is Lost in a Language of Failure and Money

2008-02-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

We can all agree," wrote a contributing editor for The Weekly Standard not long ago, "that American public schools are a joke." This way of thinking and talking about our public schools has been with us for some time: cynical and despairing. It was what led me, in the early and mid-1990s, on a cross-country journey to observe a wide variety of public schools that had been judged by their teachers