A degree of relevance?

My daughter is doing her Psychology degree dissertation on the difference made to the ability to think critically gained by getting a degree. (In other words, does the study and discipline involved make much of a difference to this and to other cognitive skills that are valued by employers and useful in working life?) I’m not living my life vicariously through her, but I am very interested in what she is learning in her studies and I love talking to her about this.

As I am approaching, in a week’s time, what could be described as a ‘milestone birthday’ I have been feeling very reflective lately. When I did my degree in the mid 1980s, fewer young people went to University, and there was a widely held belief that for many professional roles, the subject studied mattered less than the skills gained in thinking, in the application of learning and in learning how to live independently. In those days, fewer degrees in vocational subjects were on offer too. I have a combined degree in French (major) and Art (minor). I’ve spent a great deal of my working life thinking that I wasn’t really using what I learned through studying those subjects as such, but I was using (I hope) the ability to think critically, to analyse, to evaluate, to write papers with a beginning, a middle and an end etc.

Several years later, I completed an MSc in Human Resource Development. That is the degree that I always credit with giving me the knowledge base that I use in my professional work and have developed since. I’m pretty sure that I have also benefitted from the rigour of the research methods I had to learn too (a phenomenological approach to epistemology, anyone?)

Back to French and Art, and bear in mind I live in a household where husband, daughter and son do A level standard maths for fun, and openly scoff at my Arts degree. Has this served me well, aside from the general skills for work and living gained?

French? I came to realise quite soon, and certainly when I needed to focus a lot on communication within work and when using social media, just how much the study of a foreign language has helped me to understand and better use my own language. Although far from perfect of course, I have always tried to think about who I am writing for, the kind of language I am using, its accessibility, how it is going to make the reader feel, being non-judgemental etc. I appreciate the importance of paying close attention to syntax.

Art? Well this is more difficult and mostly I have thought of its value in terms of how I experience my life overall, how lucky I am to see patterns and beauty all around me, to appreciate great music, great novels and poetry etc. I am seen by some colleagues as a creative person as well, which I don’t necessarily think I am, but maybe just because that is normal to me? However, a few weeks ago, Alain de Botton, the philosopher shared an article about William Morris on Twitter,  The Great Philosophers: William Morris has made me think so much and make some links that seem quite obvious now, but have eluded me until recently. I wrote my dissertation on William Morris and the Victorian Interior, mainly because I loved his designs (and still do) and was also attracted to his socialist views.

As I write, I have my copy of News From Nowhere to hand. My name and date of purchase is inside; 8 November 1986. It is pure coincidence that I bought this book exactly 28 years ago today. I cannot possibly do its contents justice here. I have just dipped into this tale of his vision of Utopia written in 1890 and set in 2003 (if only). How about this from Chapter 10, Questions and Answers; on education in the pre-Utopian world as?

“…a niggardly dole of not very accurate information; something to be swallowed by the beginner in the art of living whether he liked it or not, and was hungry for it or not: and which had been chewed and digested over and over by people who didn’t care about it in order to serve it out to other people who didn’t care about it.”

Powerful stuff. In true, facilitator speak – lots to unpack in here…

Education as a ‘niggardly’ meaning stingy or miserly ‘dole’ meaning one’s allotted share - provided uniformly and without any thought to someone learning how to live, because people who didn’t really want to, regurgitated it, unthinkingly. How I would love to say that we have moved on from this completely and utterly…

But I digress…

The article, The Great Philosophers: William Morris, reminds us that ‘Morris was the first person to understand two issues which have become decisive for our times. Firstly: the role of pleasure in work. And, secondly: the nature of consumer demand.’ The author goes on to say that ‘He spotted that craft offers important clues to what we actually want from work. We want to know we’ve done something good with the day. That our efforts have counted towards tangible outcomes that we actually see and feel are worthwhile.’

I read that a few weeks ago, almost 28 years after starting to read News From Nowhere and suddenly my great interest in and the passion I felt when I wrote my dissertation came flooding back, along with a ‘light bulb’ moment of its relevance to what I do professionally and what I believe in.

I quote more of this article below:

‘For Morris the key factor is, therefore, whether customers are willing to pay the just price. If they are, then work can be honourable. If they are not, then work is necessarily going to be – on the whole – degrading and miserable.’  

‘So, Morris concluded that the lynchpin of a good economy is the education of the consumer. We collectively need to get clearer about what we really want in our lives and why, and how much certain things are worth to us (and therefore how much we are prepared to pay for them). 

An important clue to good consumption, Morris insisted, is that you ‘should have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful’.

I have emboldened the above famous quotation that I have never forgotten but had overlooked to made its link to the work I do. The creation of working environments in which people can be their best selves and produce items / provide services of genuine use and value to society, is I would say something that we should aspire to achieve in our profession of HR, L&D and OD. I like to think Morris would have approved of that (without all of our fripperies and nonsense fads of course.)

The article ends with some very deep questions:

‘Morris directs our attention to a set of centrally important tests that a good economy should pass.

·      How much do people enjoy working?

·      Does everyone live within walking distance of woods and meadows? 

·      How healthy is the average diet? 

·      How long are consumer goods expected to last? 

·      Are the cities beautiful (generally, not just in a few privileged parts)?’

I am definitely not qualified to answer any of the above, but I think we should all think about them, especially as we learn more about how our brains work and better understand the impact on our collective wellbeing of enjoying what we do, mindfulness, healthy eating and the environment around us.

Back to the beginning of this rather long blog, and I hope you’ve borne with my indulgence in being so reflective at this moment in my life. I look forward enormously to hearing about the results of my daughter’s research. I hope that along the way, the pleasure in and the application that can be made between the subjects studied and the skills acquired in the studying itself will become evident.