Autism and Classical Myth: Autism and Hercules: in the classroom and 'for all people everywhere'

Why classical myth and autism?

Why classical myth and autism?

The idea for this project started to take shape at a meeting in 2008 with a special needs teacher, who mentioned that, in her experience and those of her colleagues, autistic children often enjoy classical myth. I began to wonder why this might be the case, and whether – as a classicist who researches, and loves, classical myth – there was anything I could contribute. I started this blog to report on my progress which was often sporadic until the launch of the Warsaw-based European Research Council-funded project Our Mythical Childhood (2016-22) to trace the role of classics in children’s culture.

My key contribution to the project is an exploration of classics in autistic children’s culture, above all by producing myth-themed activities for autistic children. This blog shares my progress, often along Herculean paths, including to a book of lessons for autistic children focusing on the Choice of Hercules between two very different paths in life. The image above, illustrating the homepage of this blog, is one of the drawings by Steve K. Simons, the book's illustrator, of a chimneypiece panel in a neoclassical villa at Roehampton in South West London. The lessons centre on this panel.

Wednesday, 3 April 2019

Autism and Hercules: in the classroom and 'for all people everywhere' - WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS WEEK DAY 3

For today’s posting, to mark Day Three of World Autism Awareness Week, I would like to follow up on one thing I wrote about yesterday, namely the ‘Choice of Hercules’ work done by students in my Myths and Mythology class at Roehampton not long before Christmas last year. I’ve been musing on the session since yesterday, including on the potential for my project in HE teaching as well as for ‘public engagement.’ And so I’m going to delay the posting promised yesterday, on something Belgian-French related, and get that out later in the week.

As well as the fortune teller I talked about yesterday, there were some thoughtful explorations created by the students, of what it means to choose as – and with – Hercules, including those pictured in this posting. Comments from the students on what they took from the session included:

“The way that different people with different learning abilities will engage with resources and how classical mythology (and classics) can be for all people everywhere.”

“How fun it can be incorporating myth and ways it can help children with autism – I really enjoyed making our Herculean nativity scene"

I did the session as a one-off: as an example of how the module topic, classical myth. I'm now wondering whether it can have a role in encouraging students to think from new angles about classical myth and the ancient and postclassical meanings and applications of myth. When I hadn’t long started this blog, I contemplated - in this posting - designing a module with autistic students in mind: and indeed with all students in mind, as good disability practice is good practice per se. This was in March 2009, so over a decade ago. I’m considering doing something comparable now for my myth class in future iterations.

I have just been invited to speak about my autism work in a history pedagogy conference in Liverpool later this year. In light of the public engagement focus of my autism work, I had initially wondered whether my project would be relevant for a conference sharing practice in learning and teaching in higher education. I’m now starting to think that it could be relevant after all. The fit with the other papers at the CAMWS Conference panel I’ll be participating in later this week (watch this space) – which are all concerned with university classical pedagogy – is likewise perhaps strong than I’d realised. As mentioned previously I’ll put up the text of that talk later in the week.