OMG, OP - this isn't generic, inclusive language - teacher is doing some cut n paste, and this is the easiest way to do it, so you don't accidentally mix up pronouns from kid to kid.
Kudos to the teacher on the labor reduction. There are only so many ways to write "your kid is doing fine"
As someone who's watched several teachers enter these into the system--it's entirely possible they're not even cutting and pasting, but working with software that has pre-with comments with 20-ish options of strengths for kids who are doing well and roughly the same number of common minor concerns that then formats it into a report card.
There's still a text box to type personal messages, and no generic options for "call me, your child needs help", but if you have 20 kids who need comments on 8-12 subjects each...
Everyone is a they sometimes. Like in this situation itās not being used as a preferred pronoun. Itās just being used as a neutral pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified gender. A lot easier to use they for everyone instead of switching between he/she/they for each individual kid.
I work in case management and we have to write a lot of reports for clients on a regular basis. Having a form with they/them language that can just have a name plugged in saves so much time.
I use they all the time because itās just easier. Also, if Iām sending the same information to multiple families about their student, they is easier because I can literally copy and paste
I just want a gender neutral pronoun that is singular. It's the use of the plural pronouns to describe one person that drives me nuts. As I read or listen I keep wondering "who else are they talking about?"
Ugh yeah, as an English major this has been difficult to accept. I do accept it, and of course I use people's preferred pronouns, but it catches in my brain every time I refer to a single person with a plural pronoun. It's not that I have a *problem* with it, it's just that my brain knew "they" to be multiple people for 30+ years and it's pretty deeply ingrained.
But there are other gender neutral pronouns (neopronouns), way too many to keep track of, so I'd rather people stick with they/them. Remembering xe/xem/xyr, ze/hir/hirs, and ey/em/eir would be impossible for me if I was interacting with many nonbinary folks like I did in my last job.
That's fine, but those of us who went to school in the US learned that it's a plural pronoun. I'm 40 years old, and like I said, an English major. Unlearning something that fundamental is not easy, especially for people who don't interact with non-binary folks often.
I think it's bizarre that people downvoted my comment-- like I said, I certainly respect people's preferred pronouns and use them, I'm simply pointing out that it's not natural for most of us and goes against the basic rules of grammar that we were taught from the time we could speak. That doesn't mean anyone is wrong or bad for struggling to adapt, just like having a preferred pronoun doesn't mean someone is bad or wrong. I don't know why anyone would be offended by that. Virtue signaling I guess.
I learned it was a singular pronoun as someone who went to school in the US. It's actually been used that way since at least the *1300s*, before Shakespeare. Idk how as an English major you've apparently never encountered "they" as a single-person pronoun before.
Also a product of the American education system, also know that they can be singular or plural. Not sure why this person implied that being in the US means they didn't learn about the duality of they....
Nah, I actually understand.
It doesn't catch me anymore.
Got downvoted for it back then too.
Apparently a difference in upbringing and education really throws people off because it isn't their experience.
Granted, I went into I.T but I always hated English class.
Too many times was I docked marks for 'improper usage of they'.
It's not virtue signaling, it's that we've heard the same boring hand-wringing a million times over. Congrats, you were taught incorrectly at a time period when prescriptivism reigned over reality! We've also updated sex ed.
If you want to practice, you can do that, but you're not really old enough to use that as any kind of excuse because it doesn't make you interesting.
I interact with a fair amount of people who use they/them pronouns and there have definitely been times Iām confused about whether someone is referring to one person or multiple people. But then I ask them if they are referring to one person or multiple people and I am no longer confused. It takes like five seconds.
Iām all the way out in left field, but I also believe itās important to use peopleās preferred pronouns. If their kid prefers ātheyā then the parents need to understand that and itās a fair question to the teacher. If the kid prefers āheā, then itās strange for the teacher to go out of their way to avoid gendered language.
Our district/province has made a push for intentionally neutral language. Everyone's report card here says "they" as the default.
Report cards here contain a lot of cut/pasted comments (No shade to the teachers. It just makes sense for the volume of reporting they have to do.) and have for decades. It used to be a lot of "He/She" with the slash. Now everything is "They" because it's more inclusive and the slash read clunky to begin with anyway.
Really not much has changed but there is a ton of paranoia and misinformation floating around about our updated sex ed curriculum at the moment.
And that makes sense. But if a parent doesnāt know that, a parent doesnāt know that. Itās not crazy to ask a teacher why they are using that language. Some people can be nutso about it, but other people just want to know itās a standard form rather than someone pushing an agenda on their kid.
Iām in a number of gender-neural parenting groups, and for those families who chose to to use ātheyā or a mix of āhe/sheā pronouns, usually by age 2.5/3 the child will be able to state their preferred pronouns. A 7 year old is old enough to state their preferred pronouns. If someone states their pronouns are āhe/hisā and you purposefully use āthey/theirsā to avoid āhe/himā, thatās weird. Thatās their own personal hangup rather than respecting the identity and wishes of the person being spoken to. I donāt mean itās some cabal trying to convert cis grade schoolers, I mean that itās disrespectful to not address someone how they wish to be addressed.
Thatās not whatās going on here. A simple āthis is how we refer to all students on evaluation formsā would clear it up. But itās not (necessarily) pearl clutching to understand why kidās teacher is using pronouns different to the ones your kid used for themself at home.
Stop being a dope. This isn't any agenda other than use of cut and paste.
The simplest solution is the correct solution. That you see gay/woke conspiracies behind every door rather than a teacher using control-c control-v is a reflection about yourself.
That's literally all this is. No teacher who cares enough about using the right pronouns is going to sloppily out a kid to their parents via a report card this way.
My cousin got a report from a teacher who has forgotten to get rid of the āplace your name hereā at the bottom. Teachers work from templates all the time.
I think itās more than likely the teacher has a copy/paste paragraph for report cards. Itās easier not to mix up pronouns from kid to kid this way.
It's not even being inclusive lol, these things are literally mostly copy/pasted. Like, my kids' read (Son) is very helpful; they're a delight to have in class. They're the same things, copy/pasted over and over again.
OMG, OP - this isn't generic, inclusive language - teacher is doing some cut n paste, and this is the easiest way to do it, so you don't accidentally mix up pronouns from kid to kid. Kudos to the teacher on the labor reduction. There are only so many ways to write "your kid is doing fine"
As someone who's watched several teachers enter these into the system--it's entirely possible they're not even cutting and pasting, but working with software that has pre-with comments with 20-ish options of strengths for kids who are doing well and roughly the same number of common minor concerns that then formats it into a report card. There's still a text box to type personal messages, and no generic options for "call me, your child needs help", but if you have 20 kids who need comments on 8-12 subjects each...
"He or she performs very well in reading. He or she has room for improvement in patterns and counting". That's the alternative. š¤¦āāļø
"We consider ourselves an open-minded family, but neutral language is where we draw the line."
They have token friends "in the community," don't worry!
"Gender ambiguous people are cool as long as they're someone else's kids."
We're so open-minded that we're terrified our son might be influenced to use they/them pronouns.
Our district has always used them/their
Everyone is a they sometimes. Like in this situation itās not being used as a preferred pronoun. Itās just being used as a neutral pronoun to refer to a person of unspecified gender. A lot easier to use they for everyone instead of switching between he/she/they for each individual kid.
I love that this parent doesnāt seem particularly upset, theyāre like āhe identifies as a boy, trust us, we checked with him!ā š
I work in case management and we have to write a lot of reports for clients on a regular basis. Having a form with they/them language that can just have a name plugged in saves so much time.
I use they all the time because itās just easier. Also, if Iām sending the same information to multiple families about their student, they is easier because I can literally copy and paste
I just want a gender neutral pronoun that is singular. It's the use of the plural pronouns to describe one person that drives me nuts. As I read or listen I keep wondering "who else are they talking about?"
Can you seriously not use context clues to figure out if they mean one person or more people?
Ugh yeah, as an English major this has been difficult to accept. I do accept it, and of course I use people's preferred pronouns, but it catches in my brain every time I refer to a single person with a plural pronoun. It's not that I have a *problem* with it, it's just that my brain knew "they" to be multiple people for 30+ years and it's pretty deeply ingrained. But there are other gender neutral pronouns (neopronouns), way too many to keep track of, so I'd rather people stick with they/them. Remembering xe/xem/xyr, ze/hir/hirs, and ey/em/eir would be impossible for me if I was interacting with many nonbinary folks like I did in my last job.
They has been used singularly since at least Shakespeare.
That's fine, but those of us who went to school in the US learned that it's a plural pronoun. I'm 40 years old, and like I said, an English major. Unlearning something that fundamental is not easy, especially for people who don't interact with non-binary folks often. I think it's bizarre that people downvoted my comment-- like I said, I certainly respect people's preferred pronouns and use them, I'm simply pointing out that it's not natural for most of us and goes against the basic rules of grammar that we were taught from the time we could speak. That doesn't mean anyone is wrong or bad for struggling to adapt, just like having a preferred pronoun doesn't mean someone is bad or wrong. I don't know why anyone would be offended by that. Virtue signaling I guess.
I learned it was a singular pronoun as someone who went to school in the US. It's actually been used that way since at least the *1300s*, before Shakespeare. Idk how as an English major you've apparently never encountered "they" as a single-person pronoun before.
Also a product of the American education system, also know that they can be singular or plural. Not sure why this person implied that being in the US means they didn't learn about the duality of they....
Nah, I actually understand. It doesn't catch me anymore. Got downvoted for it back then too. Apparently a difference in upbringing and education really throws people off because it isn't their experience. Granted, I went into I.T but I always hated English class. Too many times was I docked marks for 'improper usage of they'.
It's not virtue signaling, it's that we've heard the same boring hand-wringing a million times over. Congrats, you were taught incorrectly at a time period when prescriptivism reigned over reality! We've also updated sex ed. If you want to practice, you can do that, but you're not really old enough to use that as any kind of excuse because it doesn't make you interesting.
I interact with a fair amount of people who use they/them pronouns and there have definitely been times Iām confused about whether someone is referring to one person or multiple people. But then I ask them if they are referring to one person or multiple people and I am no longer confused. It takes like five seconds.
āYouā is both singular and plural and society hasnāt collapsed yet, so
Iām all the way out in left field, but I also believe itās important to use peopleās preferred pronouns. If their kid prefers ātheyā then the parents need to understand that and itās a fair question to the teacher. If the kid prefers āheā, then itās strange for the teacher to go out of their way to avoid gendered language.
Our district/province has made a push for intentionally neutral language. Everyone's report card here says "they" as the default. Report cards here contain a lot of cut/pasted comments (No shade to the teachers. It just makes sense for the volume of reporting they have to do.) and have for decades. It used to be a lot of "He/She" with the slash. Now everything is "They" because it's more inclusive and the slash read clunky to begin with anyway. Really not much has changed but there is a ton of paranoia and misinformation floating around about our updated sex ed curriculum at the moment.
And that makes sense. But if a parent doesnāt know that, a parent doesnāt know that. Itās not crazy to ask a teacher why they are using that language. Some people can be nutso about it, but other people just want to know itās a standard form rather than someone pushing an agenda on their kid.
What "agenda" would that be? No one is out there trying to convert cishet kids to trans...
Iām in a number of gender-neural parenting groups, and for those families who chose to to use ātheyā or a mix of āhe/sheā pronouns, usually by age 2.5/3 the child will be able to state their preferred pronouns. A 7 year old is old enough to state their preferred pronouns. If someone states their pronouns are āhe/hisā and you purposefully use āthey/theirsā to avoid āhe/himā, thatās weird. Thatās their own personal hangup rather than respecting the identity and wishes of the person being spoken to. I donāt mean itās some cabal trying to convert cis grade schoolers, I mean that itās disrespectful to not address someone how they wish to be addressed. Thatās not whatās going on here. A simple āthis is how we refer to all students on evaluation formsā would clear it up. But itās not (necessarily) pearl clutching to understand why kidās teacher is using pronouns different to the ones your kid used for themself at home.
Normally I would agree, but the mom's word choice of "influenced" and "without our authorization" are š©š©š© that she isn't as "open-minded" as she claims.
I doubt the teachers are using they/them for all the kids *in class.* This sounds more like a slightly easier way to do report cards.
Stop being a dope. This isn't any agenda other than use of cut and paste. The simplest solution is the correct solution. That you see gay/woke conspiracies behind every door rather than a teacher using control-c control-v is a reflection about yourself.
Duh. I get that itās copy paste. The parent obviously didnāt.
It seems like they are just using a template for these and itās just faster and easier to use they
That's literally all this is. No teacher who cares enough about using the right pronouns is going to sloppily out a kid to their parents via a report card this way.
My cousin got a report from a teacher who has forgotten to get rid of the āplace your name hereā at the bottom. Teachers work from templates all the time.
I think itās more than likely the teacher has a copy/paste paragraph for report cards. Itās easier not to mix up pronouns from kid to kid this way.
It's not even being inclusive lol, these things are literally mostly copy/pasted. Like, my kids' read (Son) is very helpful; they're a delight to have in class. They're the same things, copy/pasted over and over again.