Exams are now virtual signalling?

[WarOfTheWolds]

Details changed to protect identity, but in summary:

DS had an exam today, He's at college. The exam mark will go towards his final grade. He was tasked with answering questions on several case studies. One of the subjects of a case study was a person called Sam. Sam had they/them pronouns and Sam's sex was unclear.
DS has ASC and dyslexia. He's bright, but can tend towards rigid thinking. He said that he just kept on getting confused by the case study, having to re-read it several times to understand it because of the plural pronouns (other people were also involved in the case study, so a lot of pronouns flying about). DS also ended up editing his answers several times to try and make sure he got the pronouns right and consistent.
It seems that adding these pronouns to an exam question, when it was unnecessary to the case study
(a) was virtual signalling of woke-ness by the examiner
(b) likely to confuse students with issues like ASC and dyslexia and
(c) therefore be discriminatory towards some students - both in terms of understanding, and the extra time taken to check and re-write answers.
DS gets extra time in his exams, and usually doesn't need it all. Today he only just finished in time.

So, AIBU - inclusive pronouns are great and including them in exams is important because it raises visibility
or
YANBU - these pronouns are confusing and including them in exams is unnecessary and unhelpful for students with learning difficulties

(With thanks to the posters on my first thread attempt who pointed out my logic fail on the poll 😂🙏 )

Where I am it’s totally normal to use they and them when talking about a singular person. Maybe the exam was written by someone from an area who speaks like that?

But it could be relevant to the wider course. What actually was the question?

YANBU.

At all.

Clear and unambiguous language is important.

Everyone, in all languages, understands that "they/them" denotes either plural or mixed sex groups.

Pro-nouns aren't important. Exam results are.

I'm sorry your son struggled. I would advise writing to the exam board and school. It won't do anything. But the more that write.... We may get heard.

Oh you are one of those. Good to know.

I am Autistic. Three of my four children are autistic. They would all manage the question just fine. It is appropriate in a humanities question. It is not ‘woke’ just because you have a problem with it.

If pronouns aren’t important then why do you care enough to be offended by the use of “they”?

YANBU

Neither are your views on the SNP and I'm Scottish.

People with ASD still need to live alongside a wide range of people, your son being unable to process basic pronouns in an exam isn’t anyone else’s issue but yours and his.

Maybe it’s time to put down the daily mail and join the 21st century

Is it possible the question was trying to avoid any bias in the answers caused by people knowing what sex "Sam" was?

You are being unreasonable.

1. It’s an art college. It someone is going to study or work in a creative environment they are going to be surrounded by people with progressive views and the nomenclature that go along with that.
2. Choosing pronouns are a thing for his generation and have been for some years now. It’s not some outlying thing - especially for his generation.
3. If he is prone to rigid thinking, especially in a creative environment where irony, critical theory etc are the norm, there are going to be lots of concepts that might challenge him. I’m surprised if this instance centered on pronouns is the only instance.

obviously you want him to succeed, but I suspect your are picking up on this incident because it taps into a pet prejudice you have.

Quite, my nephew is autistic and uses they/them pronouns themself. It’s a shame the OPs ignorance seems to be hampering her sons education

If pronouns aren’t important then why do you care enough to be offended by the use of “they”?

Because people with specific learning difficulties matter. And ensuring exam content is accessible to all is actually pretty bloody important.

Shame you don't seem to be bothered about other protected characteristics.

Thank you for seeing my point and articulating it.

Hey guess what - not everyone with the same condition as your dcs is affected in the same way!

What next - all black people like rap music?

There is a lot of sophisticated language required to answer maths exams too.
It really does make things harder for kids who have the skills, but have to spend too much time needing to get into the head of the exam setter.

This.

I’m not sure that there is any ‘woke’ intention here. But the fact that op is so desperate to be offended and has immediately jumped to that conclusion, along with the use of the word ‘woke’ in the first place says a lot.

YABU to think the questions are discriminatory to dyslexics or those with ASD since everyone struggles with keeping track of they/them from singular to plural. So it would not affect his grade in relation to others grades.

OP said 'at college', not 'art college'. Your entire answer is irrelevant as a result of this very basic careless mistake. And you're not even under exam conditions!

YABU
It's "virtue" signalling not virtual.
No need to use the word "woke" in quite such a dismissive way.

People are entitled to use whatever pronouns they chose and this is now part of life. It's not going away. We can grumble on here about it being woke and "confusing" but our young people do need to get used to it and using these terms. Expect to see a lot more exams with gender neutral names and pronouns. It's a shame it was difficult for your DC but they will find they need to get their head around it sooner or later.

What's 'one of those'?
Are you ^othering' the op, but portraying yourself as inclusive?..... 🤔

True :(

They is appropriate for everyone though, and it could well have been pertinent to the question. If a teenager doesn’t understand why “they” might be preferred by some people, then they might not have understood the material being covered. Without seeing the actual question and syllabus, we can’t be certain.

She's not desperate to be offended. She's concerned that her son and other students with assorted specific learning difficulties and neurodevelopmental conditions have been disadvantaged by the way the question was set, and that their needs were not considered. Seems a perfectly legitimate objection to me.

Sorry, but IRL, in careers that require maths every problem is a sophisticated word problem that you have to build from the ground up. So, it is an important skill to learn to not only read maths word problems but to tackle a real life situation and be able to write the maths word problem, then convert it to a function or equation.

Most likely those is someone who uses the term ‘woke’

it tends to out people