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

[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.