A difference in perspective

[sqbr]

Reading this overall pretty cool article: Things We Like:What Happens When Children Build Their Own Three-Story Playgrounds?, I come across the line "A travesty? Wheelchair and crutch bound children everywhere?" and thought "That would be awesome!". And I got a mental image of happy disabled children having somewhere to play.

But of course that's not what I meant, and afaict that playground would be terrible for children with mobility problems.

Which is not to say the playground idea is overall terrible, but still. It's obviously a perspective the writers of the piece didn't think of.

Comments

[nixwilliams]

ha, yes, very obviously!

(although, wow, it's a pretty awesome thing, and could totally be done in a more accessible way.)

[sqbr]

Oh yes, the basic idea is awesome. And since the article made no mention of accessibility, it's hard to say just from the photos exactly how inaccessible or not it actually is.

[nixwilliams]

i bet that if you had kids with different mobility/accessibility requirements the group would probably cater for that.

[alias_sqbr]

Maaaaybe (but how was the group chosen? It's a bit like the "We'd offer childcare if we had any female employees" thing etc). My experiences with accessibility have made me very cynical. I'll admit, however, that I don't know enough to say they wouldn't or didn't.

But: in the hypothetical situation that you had a group of ablebodied kids and an inaccessible playground, you couldn't easily change it if a new disabled kid joins or one of the old kids becomes disabled.

[nixwilliams]

yeah, i see your point. i was thinking more that if a group started with a mix of accessibility requirements and were told to go for it and make a playground that they could all use. but i can see how the very fact that there are only (perhaps) ablebodied kids in the group is a symptom of structural ableism.

[sqbr]

*nods*

[hl]

I would have been all over that as a child. O_O

[sqbr]

Me too!

Well...except that while child!me didn't have my various mobility issues (beyond unfitness and lack of corrdination) she did have a HUGE fear of heights.

[hl]

Weirdly, I acquired my general fearfulness (which includes a mild fear of heights) at mid-childhood. So you have verylittle!me going off and climbing stuff and generally being adventuresome and imitating Sandokan (a pirate!)--and little!me having changed from reading some books to reading all the time and not stepping into the sun at all. I sometimes wonder at the change, but hey, I suppose it was part of growing up or something. So I would say that 7yo me would totally be all over that, and 9yo me would probably be trying to get other people to do the work while she designs the buildings (what didn't change during childhood: awful tendency to boss around people).

Getting back on topic, how would you design a thing like this to be more inclusive?

[alias_sqbr]

Luckily my fear of heights has gotten better as I've gotten older. But apparently I was an utterly fearless baby and only became an indoors child at around 2 after having a fever!

Anyway:...I don't know to be honest. I've only had issues with stairs etc since my mid twenties, so playgrounds aren't something whose poor accessibility has ever had much effect on me. Plus while I have issues with expending energy and climbing I'm not in a wheelchair or anything (and there's probably issues for blind kids etc that aren't coming to mind).

Hmm... Ramps is the obvious option. They would also probably be less scary to climb than those ladders :) Plus hard concrete or something(*) paths to the ramps, and making sure the surface of the wooden parts is smooth, wide, and sturdy enough to allow for wheelchairs.

(*)I know there's materials that are soft enough not to hurt too much if you fall on them but rigid enough for wheelchairs that they use in some playgrounds. Or they could use more wood!

[hl]

Everything is built by the children, if I understood that right, so I just assumed that if children with motility issues were part of the equation, they would naturally design ramps or one storey buildings. The soil seems hard packed earth, but honestly you can't tell much by the pictures...

[sqbr]

See my reply to Nix above. I am reminded on further thought of a very small local con with several disabled regulars whose organisers blithely booked a venue full of stairs. (And then felt very bad about it when I and the other disabled would-be-attendees went "Uh...") Not quite the same situation, but still.

But I agree, it's hard to tell much from the pictures.

[hl]

I thought it was like a public playground--i.e. that anyone could bring and drop off their kid.

The main problem with making it accessible is not intervening in what the children do/create (which seems to be part of the philosophy of the place). I would guess that to make it so, as Nix said, you would've to start with disabled children in the group.

[sqbr]

Well, they had (very vaguely referenced) "rules" to make sure it was safe, and I'm sure in general the adults were fairly closely involved even if they let the children have the final say in everything. So you couldn't MAKE them create an accessible playground, but you could certainly encourage it. And you could always make sure there were disabled children in the group, to get a more full range of opinions.

I mean, that's a lot of bother, and I'm not saying they're terrible people for not doing it (If they didn't). But they could have.

[hl]

Right, not only 'could', but 'should'. I think that they work with a sort of loose supervision. They discourage/don't allow parents to be in the area, and the supervisors just look in on the kids every once in a while.