Reflection 2

Ryan Astudillo

Reflection 2

Imagination for Change

September 6, 2011

Reflection 2

In the book Why School? by Mike Rose, there is the issue about “hand work versus brain work” I found this topic the most interesting since it made me think about what exactly society favors. We go to school in order to gain a knowledge base and in time, carefully select the job profession we prefer to pursue. In order to be accepted into the profession, we are expected to gain degrees. With that degree, we are basically showing that we were intellectually smart enough to go through and complete college. Degrees have practically become a necessity to those offering jobs. If someone was looking at job resumes and sees that several of them have mentioned degrees, then those are taken in the most consideration. However, without that degree, they are not given much thought since they would believe they are not “intellectually” smart enough and therefore not qualified. Degrees can show that they passed college minimum requirements but do not show that they are the best choice. For example, Rose’s cousin mentioned, “It took a guy with a college degree to screw this up and a guy with a high school degree to fix it” (Rose, 67).

The way I look at the world’s flawed way of thinking is this: if you are smart, you can basically do anything. Being mentally smart grants you advantages over those who are not as equally smart. With this, the common biases about those who work with their hands are created. Can a construction worker be just as smart as someone working in accounting? Yes, yes they can. It all really depends on what exactly they are being compared on. All in all, the biases about those working with their hands are utterly ridiculous. Any job would require both intellectual thought and muscle power in order to implement the plan. The carpenter in the book is a great example of this. As Rose stated, “He was imagining the pieces as he will assemble them, thinking how the threshold will have to angle down, so that the rain will run off it, and picturing the sliding panels moving develop with that” (Rose, 79). Any job would require planning and implementation abilities. The carpenter mentally pictured what he needed to do and the possible problems he would face and worked around it.

For my Wake Up project, I had to mentally visualize what my silhouette would look like. This project requires thinking out of the box. I had to think of what possible pictures could represent my life. At first, I could only think of the necessities such as food and my family. However, overtime I managed to figure out how exactly I would place all of the pictures. My first batch of pictures were in black and white. Trying to be artistic, I figured that I would keep the inside of my shadow outline black and white while the outside would be full of colorful versions of my pictures. Art is something that is mentally and physically challenging.