If You’re Gonna Make Something Wheelchair Accessible, Don’t Make it a Thing

urbancripple:

Here’s some examples awkward accessibility being a thing:

Your at a hotel that has a lift to get you from one sub-floor to another, but the lift can only be unlocked and operated by one specific person that the hotel now has to go find. Sure, they’ve made the entrance to the sub-floor is accessible, but now it’s a thing.

The buses are wheelchair accessible but the driver has to stop the bus, take 30 seconds to lower the goddamn ramp, move passengers out of their seats, hook up the straps and then secure you in the bus. Sure, they’ve made the busses accessible but now it’s a thing.

The restaurant has an accessible entrance, but it’s past the trash room and through the kitchen. Sure, the restaurant is accessible, but now it’s an insulting thing.

Here’s some great examples of accessibility not being a thing:

The train to the airport pulls up flush with the platform. I board with everyone else and sit wherever the fuck I want. Riding the train is accessible and not a thing.

In Portland, I press a button the side of the streetcar and a ramp automatically extends at the same time the door opens. I board in the same amount of time as everyone else. This is not a thing.

I get that it is difficult to design for wheelchair accessibility, but folks need to start considering the overall quality of the experience versus just thinking about meeting the minimum requirements.

incorrectcheckpleasequotes:

Holster: One of you gets the attic as dibs but I don’t know who to pick. So in order to get it, you have to come up with a better idea than chainsaw bullets.

Nursey: What about a gun that shoots mini sandwiches or something?

Tango: What about a gun that you can curve the bullets, so you can shoot around stuff?

Ransom: No, come on we need good ideas.

Whiskey: A gun that shoots another gun.

Holster: Ok getting bette–

Dex: A gun that shoots another gun that shoots chainsaw bullets.

Ransom: Dex gets the dibs.

javert:

one problem with education (one of many many many) is that schools keep on saying ‘we want to make outlr students successful regardless of their home life’ and then they just… don’t even put in the batest effort towards doing that. If you want students to be successful at school if they have a bad home life, you need to stop relying in the home for A N Y T H I N G

for example: you cannot depend on a child’s home to provide a good environment for doing homework –> kids with poor home wnvironments will be punished because they cannot do their homework –> this is not supporting children regardless of their home environment

stop punishing children for not having their parents sign forms (esp academic ones- reading logs, report cards, etc). stop making field trips opt-in-by-parent-signature, make them opt-out

don’t assume that every child (or any child) eats at home. at the very least, offer free breakfast and lunch to every student. ideally offer a dinner, too.

stop requiring out of school commmitments like community service hours, group projects that require meeting out of school, anything that requires bringing supplies in to school

stop only offerring ‘extra curriculars’ [things like band/chorus, sports, enrichment classes or clubs] outside the school day. it makes a whole segment of the population unable to attend

ideally, schools would have a place where students can tend to their personal hygeine, like showers etc

if you require students to bring a book to read, you better provide a library

there’s like so much more, too. but making the student’s school success at least /theoretically/ not depend on their home life is the absolute bare minimum of treating disadvantaged students with dignity and not kicking them when they’re down

tldr if you say ‘we want our students to succeed at school regardless of their home life’ stop making academic success depend on things that happen at home or out of school