Covid-19 Has Much to Teach Us
Let’s start with what we shouldn’t throw away.
Allow me to preface, I am a disabled teen with several linked genetic disabilities. Of that, all you need to know is that it makes it very hard to sustain movement or fight against gravity. If I am not laying down I am using a lot of energy.
This makes it difficult to say, walk from class to class; sit upright for long stretches of time; or travel to places that need work done. Or in other words, to live. Not to say I can’t do these things, I can, but after a few days of hopping on the bus and walking from the classrooms, I will wipe out. I have traveled up and down a canyon, but afterward, I could not walk.
What does this have to do with Covid-19?
Simple, the word you are looking for is Accessibility. I’ve been home schooled since 5th grade because of my issues, but as of the early stages of 2021 I have been able to take a few classes virtually. In addition, I am gearing up to participate in a partially virtual ‘Running Start’ program at my local community college. The partially virtual part of that string is the most important part to me. Because Pre-Covid it was entirely in-person.
With the rise of working from home, so too has virtual schooling risen. That is immensely beneficial to me and those like me. We would all appreciate it if we kept these avenues open for us all.
It is not like these are a drain on everyone else anyway. We live in a positive-sum world after all! Some people just work better when working from home, for some, it is all they can do. Individualizing how we work may be the best thing we can do for those with disabilities along with the average worker.
For example, my dad works in I.T, and over the years he has gathered more and more responsibility for himself. On multiple occasions, on multiple vacations, I.T has broken down because he took a week off. Often this took several weeks to rectify.
Anyway, during our most recent expedition, he used these tools to keep IT running and coordinate his team. He also used these tools to continue his master’s degree while working his two jobs. While he would most certainly like to be re-immersed in the wonderful office culture that he is a part of, he also wouldn’t want these tools to disappear.
Do you know of these little bastards?
Of course, you do, they are the helpers of the infirm and bicycle enthusiast alike! I lived in a town where half of the sidewalks did not have curb ramps. This was the time when I most needed my wheelchair when I would have died on that canyon. It took a lot to go up or down without these ramps, and you ultimately needed a helper.
These curb ramps helped everyone with any kind of wheels, mothers, cyclists, skateboarders, movers, and of course the disabled. So too could these changes be if we just kept it around.
We don’t have to do much to maintain this change, we may need to do little more than have a discussion! But we should have that discussion, at the very least. We all want things to go back to normal, but we should think about what this pandemic has taught us before we do.
