Would it be a better world if everyone had a degree in humanity?

At Grammar School in the seventies the idea of staying on for higher education for the purpose of gaining a degree was unusual and was little understood by me as a States house kiddie.

In the fullness of time I have realised that only a small minority of degrees are achieved in higher education.

How to define a degree? In my view it is as follows.

In a chosen subject the individual must have for a period wholly invested themselves to gather sufficient knowledge to practise profitably in their subject of choice. A mouthful I accept.

It’s helpful to think of our parents. There was a time of austerity and recovery after the Occupation. They mainly left school at 14 with a limited education. Growing was the island’s main industry at the time. Many of my parents’ generation learnt enough about growing and prospered further enough to buy their own vineries.

Which has more value? A degree in horticulture based in theory, gained in higher education or a degree learnt in the practice of growing such as a family could be kept?

When I was 50 years of age I climbed the Bishorn, my 50th peak in the Alps. On reflection, incidentally I suppose, I might have a degree in Alpinism. Alpinism is learnt through practice with little theory involved. Alpinism like most degrees is not available through higher education.

I worked at St James for many years. The users of St James, be it musicians, speakers, painters, photographers all had to some extent a degree, a command if you like of their chosen fields. Furthermore, many of them through endless practice and a lifetime devoted to their subject, took their degree to an art form. It is after all St James’s purpose to help facilitate this process.

On the NHS I often propose to our elderly patients that to survive to a significant age they most have a substantial degree in surviving. Life throws so much at us over a long life.

Plymouth, being a naval base, was heavily bombed during the war. Many of our elderly patients survived the Plymouth blitz.

Prisoners may have a degree in endurance, in ‘losing’ time at least.

Those intrepid adventurous people who travel to another country to work have a degree, albeit slightly difficult to name.

Any woman who has borne a full pregnancy surely has a degree – it’s called labour for good reason. That which is suffered and learnt during labour maybe has a second life.

At work as NHS staff we know that the average woman complains less about their suffering than the average man. Fait accompli.

The heavy lifters in care of the sick and elderly, the health care assistants, all have a heightened degree in their sense of humanity. Would it be a better world if everyone had a degree in humanity?

Before I went to the Alps I spent many years exploring my many, many limitations. There are so many things I am less than average at and do not have the ‘gifts’ for.

Only James Bond can hold a master’s degree in multiple disciplines which is why he is only a fictional character.

Those few things that we can learn and learn well over the many things we can’t, have great worth and tell much about who we are. The things we have struggled with and made a little sacrifice to learn well are an affirmation of our lives’ worth.

Back on the NHS, patients from their late 70s on, often tell me that ‘they feel useless’. Currently my favourite response is, tell me of your degrees? My intention is to remind them, to reconnect them to their worth. It’s a conversation that never goes badly.

ANDREW LE PAGE

Cobham Close

Glenholt

Devon