Abstract
Helena Worthen’s book is targeted at workers, labor historians, union activists, and adult and teacher educators. I suspect it will be of most use to labor/union educators and sympathetic college educators who are interested in a deeper understanding of how learning theories—particularly those based in the United States—can influence their work.
Worthen demonstrates a depth of knowledge about labor struggles and working conditions (both union and non-union) in the United States and is passionate about building bridges of understanding between the “world of education and the world of labor” (p. 3).
The opening chapter provides a number of examples that relate to the book’s thematic question, “What did you learn at work today?” The examples range from practical work tips to understandings about power at work, and from workers’ heightened consciousness to the safety risks employers expect workers to accept. This short chapter is followed by a good introduction to the context of workplace knowledge and learning. The next chapter reviews the prevalent U.S. anti-union industry in relation to the “forbidden lessons” phrase used in the book’s subtitle, which is familiar fare to labor educators. Chapter 4 is a very brief comment on “labor education classes: a place to conspire.”
These brief introductory chapters are followed by an explanation of four learning theories: Kolb’s learning cycle, communities of practice, work process theory, and activity theory. The author discusses these theories in some depth and illustrates how these theories work in practice in the workplace, paying particular attention to activity theory. The first three theories could benefit from a more critical examination of how they are used to support a unitary workplace serving the interests of employers and capitalist economy rather than workers’ interests. The four theories are contrasted with “Tarzan: a bad theory,” which debunks learning as resulting from “trying hard or being intellectually gifted.” Worthen instead argues for learning as a product of “social interaction, the power of community” (p. 82).
The subsequent chapters use the theories to examine five case studies: “Effingham: bomb, union, strike, lockout”; “How children learn about their parents’ work”; “Construction industry apprenticeships as communities of practice”; “Garment shops: problems and solutions”; and “An old power plant: non-standard knowledge.” All of these chapters offer interesting insights on workers’ learning, knowledge creation, and resistance to achieve positive change. Labor educators and teachers in general should find these cases to be a useful resource.
The final chapters briefly discuss knowledge, the attacks on public education, the attempts to displace broader knowledge with a corporate training agenda, and the recent teacher disputes that have occurred in major U.S. cities. The author concludes on a somber note: if the school system is balkanized (with the growth of charter schools), it is questionable that a teachers union could mount “any kind of a fight back at all” in the future (p. 232).
Worthen concludes with a brief “Why did I write this book?” chapter, which pulls together the key threads of her text, although some of this material could have been usefully inserted into the first chapter.
This is an important and timely book given the continuing emphasis on the importance of workplace learning and the ideas about knowledge work. It is a very useful resource for U.S. labor/union educators and teachers at all levels.