I have talked of this to many friends before, but I felt the urge, nonetheless, to record here a lesson I was truly blown away by in my masters program. While the principle was there all along for me to apply as a student, it was only as a TA that the full force of it hit me. The honor code.
Per Wiki:
'An honor code or honor system is a set of rules or principles governing a community based on a set of rules or ideals that define what constitutes honorable behavior within that community. The use of an honor code depends on the idea that people (at least within the community) can be trusted to act honorably...'
Having always been accustomed to the presence of an invigilator during examinations at schools and colleges back home, on the first mid-term that my fellow TAs and I were asked to proctor here, I assumed, naturally, that one TA ought to sit inside the classroom keeping watch over the students. Lest they resort to some malpractice, yeah? Just as I made myself comfortable and pulled out a book to read, the senior TA whispered urgently from outside for me to come out. I did, expecting her to tell me something important. But she just smiled and showed me the book she was reading, the exact same thing I'd brought along! A coincidence all right, but there was work to be done, so I smiled back and made for the door again. This time she touched me lightly on the shoulder and said, 'Why are you going back inside?' Puzzled, I asked, 'But shouldn't there be someone inside?'
'Oh, they'll come outside if they have any questions; they know we're right here.'
'Sure, but to proctor?'
'Proctor? We don't have to be inside to proctor. In reality it is the Honor code that does it, right?'
It took a few slow seconds for that to sink in. Yes, indeed it is the honor code that proctors. In fact, it is the honor code that binds us as a society for all ethical conduct, in all those spheres not governed by rules set in stone, authorized by any penal code.
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Ever since I have thought about how there really can be no other way to build trust in any relationship than by stating clearly, that one trusts the other to do the right thing and holds oneself up to the same standard. (It is another matter altogether, what the agreed upon/how to know what the right thing is. But trusting first is the most critical.) Over time, it helped me also understand why at some level the popular notion parents hold of rebellious teens and their compulsion to flout norms arises. There are many complex psychological & hormonal triggers governing it for sure, but I posit that an absence of trust, is definitely what aggravates it.
Trust goes beyond an implicit decision on one's part to blindly believe in someone. It is crystallized by an honest dialog between two parties. In the specific instance used above of the dynamic between parents and children, out of a fear that addressing an issue can license or sanction less than commendble behavior in some ways, parents often fail to engage in a joint process of questioning and arriving at the truth. Instead, they lay it down as the law of the house, which ought be followed, or else... Implicit in this behavior is, at a very deep level, a lack of trust in the child that individuals are capable of reasoning and mature decision-making through a process than by an overnight switch. More deeply, and quite sadly, it must also a reflect a lack of trust in themselves too, no? A lack of confidence in their ability to lead by example, and a lack of faith in an essential goodness in beings that does respond to actions and habits that bring discord and calibrates iteratively, each at their own pace, to what restores harmony.
Applying trust more broadly to any relationship, placing trust out there on the table, I believe, is also a commitment to accept that mistakes do happen even with the best of intentions, granting that a mistake is only an opportunity to learn; it is a commitment to separate the action from the doer, to be critical of the action and only loving of the doer; it is an unerstanding that trustworthiness only springs forth by first investing trust.
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The honor code- a sacred, unspoken truth binding the maker and the keeper and rewarding them both aplenty with conviction and honor; it rests solely on the firmament of abiding faith.
