The Curb-Cut Effect

When I received my copy of Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) magazine last month and read the cover article on the “Curb-Cut Effect,” a lightbulb went off.  This was such a clear and concise way to explain much of what we are trying to do through our DEIJ work.  You can read the article here, but this is the gist of what I took away:

In the 1970s we started cutting curbs in cities and installing ramps to improve access to city spaces for people in wheelchairs.  It was a targeted intervention to help one group of people.  In the 50 years since then, curb-cuts and ramps have improved accessibility for people with strollers, delivery men and women, those with luggage, etc.  A targeted intervention for one group has improved conditions for many other groups. 

Making changes to our teaching practice or school policy to improve access to our curriculum, the physical building, our extracurricular activities, or our school community and culture as a whole, for any one student or group of students is important. We don’t want to eliminate targeted interventions. We probably want to increase the number of targeted interventions we introduce at EHS.  While doing that, it’s key to recognize the way that those changes targeted at one group can benefit many other groups as well either directly or indirectly.

In the last 18 months, we have all made specific and targeted changes to our teaching practice and many of our school policies in response to our circumstances - we have cut a lot of curbs to allow our students to succeed in the midst of a global pandemic. Now we should reflect on how those “cut-curbs” can continue to help students as we return to our “new normal.” Which of  those targeted interventions would help all of our students? How can we expand on those? How can we make them a permanent part of our teaching practice and school? 

I, for one, don’t want to let those cut-curbs get rebuilt as we return to “normal” someday.