I’ll Title This Later. You Figure It Out.

I keep hearing about these kids not having their school stuff on time and how it’s messing with their ability to learn during the pandemic. I understand that these times are hard for everybody because everything is so totally screwed, but whenever I read another story about kids not having their stuff on time, my gut reaction is a resounding “Aww! Poor muffin!”

I may seem heartless for thinking that way, but there is a reason. Do you know who didn’t have their stuff on time every single year? Me! Do you know who else didn’t? Every single student with a disability that needed materials in another format. Did you ever hear an outcry about how our learning was affected by insufficient materials? Maybe in some corner of a magazine dedicated to accessibility, but it wasn’t anywhere else. We were just expected to figure it out. Everybody else had their stuff, and we were expected to figure it out. But now, because it’s affecting everybody, it’s a big problem deserving news coverage.

I hope it gets fixed this time, but I hope it doesn’t just get fixed for the average Joe and leave us doing our usual game of catch-up and figure it out for the rest of time. I hope people finally realize that getting books a few weeks late in a 12-week course doesn’t really help contribute to a good learning strategy. I hope that when people make training materials, they consider making them available in an alternate format so that if someone takes a training course, they’re actually able to follow along with the rest of the class, especially when the instructor knows that someone needs an alternative format in advance. I can hope, but I’m not holding my breath.