The Importance of trust (Rewrite)

Since the beginning of our time in INTD 105 we’ve sought to understand the interactions and elements that make up a good academic partnership. I believe trust’s importance in any relationship can’t be understated, this includes academic partnerships like those formed by students and their universities. I believe a good example of what happens when this trust is breached is shown in the situation described by Drew Harwell in his article “Colleges are turning students’ phones into surveillance machines, tracking the locations of hundreds of thousands”. Harwell’s article focuses on schools tracking their students via their cell phones. The article identifies the service in question as SpotterEDU; SpotterEDU is a tracking service developed by Rick Carter, a former basketball coach, as a way to track the attendance of student-athletes. The service functions by using an array of short-range Bluetooth phone sensors and campus Wi-Fi networks and is currently used by several universities to track student’s class attendance, their time in common spaces, time in their room, etc. Harwell writes how the school’s then use this data to develop personal “risk scores”, which schools can then use to arrange real-world interventions. You’ll see this situation can be related to that of Gan and T’Gatoi in the story blood child. Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” demonstrates the importance trust, more specifically in the process of letting a someone become the adult their trying to be.

A sentiment expressed throughout Harwell’s article is discontent with schools that have implemented the SpotterEDU system and several students explain how they feel it’s an invasion of privacy. On the other hand, those who favor the service may claim that it increases the motivation of students, citing the quote “Rubin, the Syracuse professor, said once-thin classes now boast more than 90 percent attendance.” However, this increase in the ability to track attendance is overshadowed by the distraction it creates in the classroom. Harwell demonstrates this when he writes “a freshman athlete at Temple University who asked to speak anonymously to avoid team punishment, said the SpotterEDU app has become a nightmare, marking him absent when he’s sitting in class and marking him late when he’s on time.” The Freshman later commented that they’d missed out on lectures while fumbling with the app in an effort to be marked present while being berated by frustrated professors. I believe this incident demonstrates how a lack of trust weakens a relationship. Another concern raised is that the increased surveillance placed upon students is stunting their development into independent adults. Joanna Grama, an information security consultant and higher-education specialist, encapsulates this when they state “At what point in time do we start crippling a whole generation of adults, human beings, who have been so tracked and told what to do all the time that they don’t know how to fend for themselves. This presents the possibility that colleges are not only harming students’ ability to learn in the classroom but also growth into independent adults as a result of their lack of trust in students’ ability to self-motivate such as attending class without being monitored. I believe this article by Drew Harwell demonstrates the Importance of trust in maintaining a healthy academic partnership.

In Bloodchild Gan and T’Gatoi have a relationship that is constantly evolving as a result of their trust in one another. In the beginning Gan and T’Gatoi appear to be fairly close; This is demonstrated by when Butler writes “T’Gatoi and my mother had been friends, all my mother’s life, and T’Gatoi was not interested in being honored in the house she considered her second-home”.(Butler 4) T’Gatoi is clearly very close to Gan’s family and views herself as a part of the family. The close relationship between T’Gatoi and Gan is again expressed when Gan says “I’m told I was first caged within T’Gatoi’s many limbs only three minutes after my birth. A few days later I was given my first taste of egg. I tell Terrans that when they ask whether I was ever afraid of her.” (Butler 8) Here Gan explains how T’Gatoi has been in his life since the beginning and so he has never been afraid of her, thus demonstrating his trust.

 However, their relationship is complicated when Gan gets more information about what awaits him, which causes him to develop distrust of T’Gatoi because of the withheld information. Gan’s views can be seen shifting when he states “I had been told all my life that this was a good and necessary thing Tlic and Terran did together—a kind of birth. I had believed it until now. I knew birth was painful and bloody, no matter what. But this was something else, something worse.” (Butler 16-17) Here Gan witnesses the harsh reality of the task he is being guided towards by T’Gatoi. Shortly after this Gan is also affected by a statement his brother makes “I saw them eat a man”. (Butler 20) Here Gan’s brother explains how he witnessed a Tlic sacrifice their Terran companion so they didn’t lose their grubs inside him. This distresses Gan triggering what appears to be an existential crisis during which he argues with his older brother whether the process has any greater meaning than Tlic just taking advantage of Terran.

These events affect Gan’s relationship with T’Gatoi which is demonstrated by his reaction “‘I don’t want to be a host animal,’ I said ‘Not even yours,’”(Butler 24) at this point Gan refused to be impregnated by T’Gatoi because of what he’d learned. Then T’Gatoi suggests replacing Gan with his sister, this causes Gan to retract his statement because he didn’t want to hide behind his sister. Gan then accepts T’Gatoi’s egg and then explains how he was afraid which leads to an important conversation between Gan and T’Gatoi “‘Terrans should be protected from seeing.’ I didn’t like the sound of that—and I doubted that it was possible. ‘Not protected,’ I said ‘Shown. Shown when we’re young kids, and shown more than once…’”. This leads to the revelation that for a relationship to be successful, there must be trust. Gan demonstrates this because he won’t accept the egg until he has all the information on what he’s in for. He also advocates for the birthing process to be more comprehensively taught so others can make an educated decision.

                In Both of these situations the main problems stem from a lack of trust in one’s ability to act like an adult. However, the solution is demonstrated when Gan says “If we’re not your animals, if these are adult things, accept the risk. There is risk, Gatoi, in dealing with a partner.” Here Gan explains that the only way that his and T’Gatoi’s relationship can work is if she can trust him to act like an adult. Another way of looking at it is that Gan can only truly becomes an adult once T’Gatoi can put her trust in him. This compares to the idea presented by Joanna Grama in Harwell’s article where she claims that universities that force their students to be less independent are preventing students from truly becoming adults. In regards to the academic partnership I think this teaches us that if you want someone to become an adult you have to be willing to treat them like one first.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.