Seattle high schooler marked incorrect on quiz for saying only women can get pregnant: report

Valletta · Dec 14, 2023

The mom who said she felt “frustration and anger” over the quiz also said her son, who is white, is often berated by teachers at the school who have reportedly accused him of being racist and “a product of the patriarchy that teaches young boys not to care about anything,” according to the Rantz show.
Seattle Public Schools said the quiz was meant to promote inclusion and was in line with lessons taught in the Ethnic Studies class.

Seattle high schooler marked incorrect on quiz for saying only women can get pregnant: report

The student labeled two statements “true” — The first that “All men have penises” and the second that “Only women can get pregnant.” He was marked incorrec…

nypost.com

The liberal approach to education is a disservice to our children.

eleos1954 · Dec 14, 2023

Valletta said:
The mom who said she felt “frustration and anger” over the quiz also said her son, who is white, is often berated by teachers at the school who have reportedly accused him of being racist and “a product of the patriarchy that teaches young boys not to care about anything,” according to the Rantz show.
Seattle Public Schools said the quiz was meant to promote inclusion and was in line with lessons taught in the Ethnic Studies class.

Seattle high schooler marked incorrect on quiz for saying only women can get pregnant: report

The student labeled two statements “true” — The first that “All men have penises” and the second that “Only women can get pregnant.” He was marked incorrec…

nypost.com

The liberal approach to education is a disservice to our children.

People are dismissing biological science on the matter and are allowing themselves to be deceived.

No way I would have a child in today's school system.

ozso · Dec 14, 2023

I've heard over and over again that there's no such thing as a trans curriculum in the public school system.

iluvatar5150 · Dec 14, 2023

From the article:

The student’s mother said her son was expressing his own beliefs with his quiz answers.

Perhaps it would've been better to answer in accordance with what the section taught, which, according to the article, was the distinction between sex and gender.

ozso · Dec 14, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
From the article:

Perhaps it would've been better to answer in accordance with what the section taught, which, according to the article, was the distinction between sex and gender.

Some people stubbornly insist on sticking to reality.

Margaret3110 · Dec 14, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
Perhaps it would've been better to answer in accordance with what the section taught, which, according to the article, was the distinction between sex and gender.

Perhaps the questions should have been phrased as referring to what some people believe rather than what's objectively true.

iluvatar5150 · Dec 14, 2023

Ceallaigh said:
Some people stubbornly insist on sticking to reality.

Do you contend that everybody's genitalia jive with with what their brains tell them?

Margaret3110 said:
Perhaps the questions should have been phrased as referring to what some people believe rather than what's objectively true.

It's quite conceivable that some broader context was provided either elsewhere on the quiz, by the teacher via instructions to the class, or through the preceding lessons, but we can't know that because neither the radio host to whom the mother was talking nor the NY Post who reported on this bothered to provide any of that information.

jacks · Dec 14, 2023

"The student labeled two statements “true” — The first that “All men have penises” and the second that “Only women can get pregnant.” He was marked incorrect for both and failed the “knowledge check” quiz as a result."

I guess he doesn't know the world is flat either.

RileyG · Dec 14, 2023

The student is 100% right. Only women can get pregnant. Period. That's simple biology.

ozso · Dec 14, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
Do you contend that everybody's genitalia jive with with what their brains tell them?

What someone's brain tells them doesn't change reality. The questions should be realistic, such as: "Some men think they are women" and "some women think they are men". Agreeing with that and agreeing people have the right to believe that is fine. But insisting that everyone must believe that woman can have penis and a man can become pregnant, means that your brain is supposed to operate the same as theirs does ie we're all supposed to have a transexual mentality.

iluvatar5150 · Dec 14, 2023

Ceallaigh said:
What someone's brain tells them doesn't change reality.

You're welcome to that opinion, but in a class that's trying to make a distinction between biological hardware (i.e. "sex") and what somebody's brain tells them about themselves and how that maps onto their place in society (i.e. "gender"), it would behoove students to acknowledge that distinction instead of conflating them as the student, the student's mother, the radio host, and you all seem to be doing.

dzheremi · Dec 14, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
You're welcome to that opinion, but in a class that's trying to make a distinction between biological hardware (i.e. "sex") and what somebody's brain tells them about themselves and how that maps onto their place in society (i.e. "gender"), it would behoove students to acknowledge that distinction instead of conflating them as the student, the student's mother, the radio host, and you all seem to be doing.

The problem here is very obvious: We have one word ("women") that is being expected to do two jobs simultaneously: (1) denote people who have the "biological hardware" (as you've put it) to be classed as women; and (2), denote people who do not have the "biological hardware" to be classed as women. Since that one word can't distinguish both groups simultaneously, various circumlocutions have come into the societal discussion on this issue: "assigned female at birth", "male/female-presenting", etc., etc., etc. Even the most clear term that can be used -- "trans women" -- is still not just "women". That's the whole point of having the adjective "trans" before the noun "women".

So while it's obvious that this story-that-shouldn't-be-a-story is more conservative rage-bait, it would be foolish to pretend that when people hear the word "women", they don't think of category (1) before thinking of category (2). Why? Because category (1) is more basic than category (2), and that's how language works. There is no society in the world or time period that we can look to wherein people developed the concept and terms related to the "mansion" before they developed the concept and terms related to the "house", you know what I mean? It really is that basic, and the fact that some people don't want to admit that this is how things work not based on their political or social beliefs or where they get their news, but based on the very basic mapping of categories in the human brain as expressed by language the world over frankly makes those people seem like the ones who are not willing to make the distinctions needed to effectively communicate.

To put it another way, I'm sure this student would've had a much greater chance of getting the question "right" if it had been asked in a way that actually made the supposedly important distinction between "sex" and "gender" clear in the formatting of the question, but that's not what happened. The question wasn't "Can only people who present themselves as women get pregnant?", or "Can only people whose gender identity is congruent with their sex get pregnant?" It was "Can only women get pregnant?" That was obviously not because there was no way to further disambiguate the question.

ozso · Dec 14, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
You're welcome to that opinion, but in a class that's trying to make a distinction between biological hardware (i.e. "sex") and what somebody's brain tells them about themselves and how that maps onto their place in society (i.e. "gender"), it would behoove students to acknowledge that distinction instead of conflating them as the student, the student's mother, the radio host, and you all seem to be doging.

Like I said, reality is some men think they are women and some women think they are men. Why does that need to be phrased differently?

ozso · Dec 14, 2023

dzheremi said:
The problem here is very obvious: We have one word ("women") that is being expected to do two jobs simultaneously: (1) denote people who have the "biological hardware" (as you've put it) to be classed as women; and (2), denote people who do not have the "biological hardware" to be classed as women. Since that one word can't distinguish both groups simultaneously, various circumlocutions have come into the societal discussion on this issue: "assigned female at birth", "male/female-presenting", etc., etc., etc. Even the most clear term that can be used -- "trans women" -- is still not just "women". That's the whole point of having the adjective "trans" before the noun "women".

So while it's obvious that this story-that-shouldn't-be-a-story is more conservative rage-bait, it would be foolish to pretend that when people hear the word "women", they don't think of category (1) before thinking of category (2). Why? Because category (1) is more basic than category (2), and that's how language works. There is no society in the world or time period that we can look to wherein people developed the concept and terms related to the "mansion" before they developed the concept and terms related to the "house", you know what I mean? It really is that basic, and the fact that some people don't want to admit that this is how things work not based on their political or social beliefs or where they get their news, but based on the very basic mapping of categories in the human brain as expressed by language the world over frankly makes those people seem like the ones who are not willing to make the distinctions needed to effectively communicate.

To put it another way, I'm sure this student would've had a much greater chance of getting the question "right" if it had been asked in a way that actually made the supposedly important distinction between "sex" and "gender" clear in the formatting of the question, but that's not what happened. The question wasn't "Can only people who present themselves as women get pregnant?", or "Can only people whose gender identity is congruent with their sex get pregnant?" It was "Can only women get pregnant?" That was obviously not because there was no way to further disambiguate the question.

Man means male, males have a penis. Woman means female, females have a vagina. What's posted above lengthy convoluted mental acrobatics, that can be condensed into simple reality ie some men/males think they are women/females and some women/females think they are men/males.

iluvatar5150 · Dec 14, 2023

dzheremi said:
To put it another way, I'm sure this student would've had a much greater chance of getting the question "right" if it had been asked in a way that actually made the supposedly important distinction between "sex" and "gender" clear in the formatting of the question, but that's not what happened. The question wasn't "Can only people who present themselves as women get pregnant?", or "Can only people whose gender identity is congruent with their sex get pregnant?" It was "Can only women get pregnant?" That was obviously not because there was no way to further disambiguate the question.

Sure, overloading the terms "women" and "men" can be confusing, but we don't actually know how the question was presented, or how those terms were defined in the class, because we didn't see any of the course material or anything of the quiz other than those two questions absent any other context. Maybe the terms were defined at the top of the page or by the teacher at the beginning of the class or earlier in the chapter.

Based on the mother's comments that he was answering according to his beliefs and the fact that she chose to air her grievances through an inflammatory conservative radio host, I'm skeptical the kid was genuinely confused. I'm more inclined to believe that he knew what they were asking and chose to answer as he did in order to make a point.

dzheremi · Dec 14, 2023

iluvatar5150 said:
Sure, overloading the terms "women" and "men" can be confusing, but we don't actually know how the question was presented, or how those terms were defined in the class, because we didn't see any of the course material or anything of the quiz other than those two questions absent any other context. Maybe the terms were defined at the top of the page or by the teacher at the beginning of the class or earlier in the chapter.

Based on the mother's comments that he was answering according to his beliefs and the fact that she chose to air her grievances through an inflammatory conservative radio host, I'm skeptical the kid was genuinely confused. I'm more inclined to believe that he knew what they were asking and chose to answer as he did in order to make a point.

I didn't click the link, because I don't read trash like the NY Post, but I assumed that they were presenting the statement (not question; sorry, that's on me for not double-checking the formatting of the quiz before posting) as it was on the quiz: "Only women can get pregnant." If that's not the case, then that does change things a bit.

And I agree that it seems that the kid answered as he did to make a point about his viewpoint (or at least that's what it seems his mom is saying, based on what has been shared from her in this thread). My point was not about that, but rather that if we're going to be told about this very important distinction between sex and gender, then it's a bit disingenuous to not invoke that or make it clear in a quiz that is apparently meant to test if you understand what that distinction is. Whether the kid's being a smart aleck or not, it's up to the test designers to make sure that their questions reflect what they're actually testing for. I've worked in test design for graduate level courses at the University of New Mexico, and I can tell you from my experience there that if any of the questions on any of the tests I designed were ever so vague as to not be clear as to what was actually being asked/tested for, I would've been fired for producing a substandard product.

MForbes · Dec 15, 2023

The far-right and far-left are turning this country into an Idiocracy.

Daniel Marsh · Dec 15, 2023

RileyG · Dec 15, 2023

Ceallaigh said:
I've heard over and over again that there's no such thing as a trans curriculum in the public school system.

It's even taking over small towns. Sad.

RileyG · Dec 15, 2023

eleos1954 said:
People are dismissing biological science on the matter and are allowing themselves to be deceived.

No way I would have a child in today's school system.

Thank God I do not have children and I don't put myself through that.

Seattle high schooler marked incorrect on quiz for saying only women can get pregnant: report

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