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What Did You Learn At Work Today?: The forbidden lessons of labor education Paperback – March 12, 2014

by Helena Worthen (Author)

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This is... A book about work, at a time when there are too few jobs; A book about labor at a time when hardly anyone be¬longs to a union; A book about knowledge and what you already know; A book about learning that says here’s how you did it; A book for working people, for teachers, and for the labor movement; A book for everyone who has ever asked, “Can they get away with that?”

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Product details

Paperback: 278 pages
Publisher: Hard Ball Press (March 12, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0991163966
ISBN-13: 978-0991163960
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 9 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,549,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #52634 in Education Theory (Books)

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Eesha Williams

Workers Unite

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2014

Format: Paperback

In the USA, workers make about 27 percent higher wages when they join a union. That's according to the federal Labor Department. Union dues are usually about 2 percent of a worker's income. On average, workers get better health care and retirement pensions when they join a union. Non-union workers can be fired at any time for no reason. Most workers who belong to a union can only be fired for a good reason.

In 2006 in Effingham, Illinois, population 13,000, a fight for union rights broke out. About 160 people worked at Heartland Human Services, a private agency that received government money to help mentally ill people.

The workers, most of whom were women, organized a union. To get a first contract, they went on strike. The strike lasted more than 12 months. Only a handful of workers crossed the picket line. Finally, the workers won.

In "What Did You Learn at Work Today?" Helena Worthen tells this and other true stories. Her book is well written and should be a powerful inspiration to the millions of American workers who don't have a union.

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Worthen will do a book reading at 6 p.m. on 8/29/2014 at Everyone's Books in Brattleboro, Vermont.

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Michael Sacco

The book you didn't know you had been waiting for!

Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2014

Format: Paperback

Helena Worthen has written the book that everyone didn't know they need to read! Ostensibly targeted at union leaders, educators and others interested in work and workers, Worthen has put together (a mostly) easy to read, credible book about life on the job in the 21st century. Part history, part sociology, part political science and part learning theory, Helena Worthen has used her experience as a labor educator to help explain how workers learn, adapt, improve and defend jobs that are often poorly planned, organized and executed while staying alive literally and figuratively. This book is nicely researched and documented, so if you are using it for your work, it will be a useful tool. The only parts that moved a little slow was the short section on theory, that tends to bore me personally...On another note, this book is nicely printed on good paper stock so the pages are easy to turn for disabled or older readers...I really enjoyed reading this book even though I knew when I was done,"it was good for me!"

2 people found this helpful

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R Dwayne

What Did You Learn?

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2014

Format: Paperback

This book is a must for all who want to answer the question, "Can they really do that?" The short answer is yes they can and that question is a hold over from when more people were represented by unions. "They" couldn't then but "they can now. There are 4 theories of learning which are represented here and they have case examples to further aid in the learning. The book starts out with defining who has power and who doesn't and then goes to how to identify and train a person who might be good leader. The case examples in this book are not only the workers but their children's as well. This is a must read for union leadership.

4 people found this helpful

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lissadell

What Did You Learn At Work Today? reviewed

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2014

Format: Paperback

As a professor in the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations, Helena Worthen discovered that there is a “deep and broad opposition to educating people about their rights at work:” “Teaching about workers’ rights is actually opposed, contested, distorted, corrupted with misinformation, blocked and forbidden.” (p.31) What Did You Learn at Work Today? is Worthen’s attempt to rectify this omission. She discusses laws that protect or restrict workers’ rights and demonstrates the various ways that they are carried out or circumvented in the workplace. She examines theories of knowledge applicable to formal and informal learning settings and concludes that people learn best collectively, and that learning is a step-by-step process.

Most interesting for me were her observations about how the goals of education have changed over the past 75 years. Originally, the stated purpose of education was to create an educated citizenry. In the 1940s, “the Truman Commission proposed the establishment of community colleges all over the country open to anyone who could profit or benefit from instruction.” Worthen comments, “the community colleges were truly open-door public institutions for lifelong learning.” (p.210) Today, with the establishment of for-profit colleges and institutions of learning all over the U.S. as well as the embrace of the business model by public institutions, the goals of education have been redefined more narrowly as training for job skills.

"It is easy to tell the difference between education and training. In training, students learn the curriculum. In education, students learn the curriculum and go on to critique and expand or change it. In training, students obey the instructor. In education, students are encouraged to overtake the teacher and go beyond what was expected in the class. In training, students are being prepared for a specific subordinate role in society, to work in someone else’s business or institution. In education, the top is left off: they may look towards any role in society that they are capable of and choose their own horizon." (p.213)

Worthen provides examples drawn from her long experience as a teacher and professor to document discriminatory bias and animus in the workplace, as well as to describe how vindictive employers may dismiss with impunity workers whose legitimate complaints and requests anger, annoy, or inconvenience them. We live in a society where the business model has triumphed, union membership is at a low, and most employees are “at-will” and can be fired with little recourse. Despite the fact that most people go to school and most people work, Worthen finds there is a wall between education and labor

"that cuts the primary experience of adult life, work, in two. It disrespects the actual experience of ordinary people….It freezes discussion and guarantees the failure of fights to reduce inequality. All that ‘making a living’ means, and how to achieve it in terms of wages, working conditions, safety, security, dignity and surviving the job, and the likely need to fight to make this happen, is blanked out." (p.237)

This is a thought-provoking and passionate book with an empowering message: Worthen’s case for breaking down this wall between education and labor is also a heartfelt plea for social justice.

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Giamila Fantuzzi

Everybody will learn from this book

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2014

Format: Paperback

I really liked this book and found it extremely interesting, as it taught me how things work in workplaces I have never personally had to deal with. I found particularly useful the chapter on the apprenticeship and the one on "old knowledge". Even though my job is very different from the ones discussed in these chapters, some of the same concepts directly apply to working in a research labpratory, as I do. The book's analysis of those situations allowed to me look at things that happen in my own working life in a rather different manner. Particularly the idea of "old knowledge" is so relevant today, with that technical changes making my own knowledge already 'old", even though I am still quite far away from retirement. Definitely an eye-opener for me, and I am sure for many more.

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Lindsey Giroux

Very informative

Reviewed in Canada on January 8, 2019

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I ordered this book because one of my classes required it. Worthen is extremely knowledgeable and this book is very informative and easy to read.

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What Did You Learn At Work Today?: The forbidden lessons of labor education Paperback – March 12, 2014

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