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| L-R: Sonya Nevin, Lisa Maurice (organiser), me, Deborah Roberts (chair), Robin Diver |
The photo that heads this posting shows myself,
fellow speakers and chair at the panel at FIEC that I blogged about last
week as I was preparing my paper.
It was a very happy event - successful too I
think - aided by a supportive and engaged audience whose comments
and questions - during the session and afterwards - have been perhaps
the most helpful and encouraging that I've ever experienced from
an panel I've been part of.
As is my usual practice, I didn't take along a script
where everything was written out - but I spoke from notes. And I've
written these up now for this posting.
 |
Caroline Lawrence's photo of the relevant page
of the conference programme |
The further photos I'm including were taken during the event, and I'll end with some of the comments that went up on social media, one of which has inspired the first part of the title for this posting.
It’s an honour to be here – at FIEC and on this panel –
along with colleagues I have been collaborating with for several years now: on
classics and children’s culture, and, included with this, on an emerging topic
of how receptions for children of classical myth are done/received by girls.
What we’re discovering for instance is a lot of gender stereotyping… but
also a lot that can engage the imaging of young girls – while using classical
subjects to help socialise them.
What I’m going to talk about are the resources I am developing as part
of the Our Mythical Childhood project – for autistic children.Instead of a ppt /tradtitional handout here’s a picture for you to colour in… So
that you yourself get to engage with the activities that the children use…
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| Caroline Bristow holds up her handout |
It’s a drawing created by Steve Simons – of an 18th-century chimneypiece
panel at Roehampton showing the hero’s choice between two divergent paths in life.
The activities – in progress – centre around two key things. One is: dealing with emotions, including feeling overwhelmed. The image
is suitable as there is so much, e.g. fruit bowls, one with fruit that’s overflowing,
and a helmet with a snake on top of it. What’s more there are two very distinct
halves of the scene, one on each side, which might impact on how you colour in. The other is making choices – something autistic people find it hard to
do.
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| Caroline Lawrence's colouring in (and colouring round!) |
And: what I am considering is another set of activities, for girls,
especially as girls, at least on reaching puberty, often have distinct experiences.
These don’t have to be hardships – quite the opposite – but they can be
experienced as such because of things like peer pressure and the expectations that
society has around what a girl is or should be.
So, I am making an intervention into the myth of Hercules – to enable
autistic teenage girls think about their relationship with for example expectations
around fitting in versus being different and thinking about taking ownership of
their difference as opposed to masking –that is pretending to fit in…
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| Caroline Bristow's colouring in |
Hercules is a suitable, even ideal figure for autistic people for the following
reasons. I’m not seeking to diagnose Hercules as autistic – but there are
traits evident in experiences of Hercules that can speak to an autistic experience.
For one thing, he functions well in his own space, the wilds, with success. He
does this mostly alone, or with others but on his own terms. He has key skills –
exceptional strength and cunning, as well as the ability to stick to a task –
which he uses to deal with a particular scenario.
Then, no soon has he completed the task that he has to start all over
again, and learn the rules afresh for the next task he encounters. While he
functions well in his chosen space, when he gets among lots of people, things
can go wrong – and he can carry out acts of violence which might be experienced
as emotional overload.
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| Me and Robin by Caroline Lawrence |
On two occasions, when I’ve outlined ‘why Hercules?’ in a way consistent
with the way I have here, autistic people have commented: ‘that sounds like
being autistic.’
I’m planning to use Hercules in activities for autistic girls then – and
despite the less appealing aspects of this myth – unless we use the myth to
show girls that the world isn’t always a nice place – including because of what
heroes might do to them…
Now to some discussion of how the activities could help deal with the
challenges and positives of being an autistic girl. Life can be hard – for any
girl but with particular challenges for autistic girls. For example, relationships
become more complex and complicated. School – after smaller primary school - will
be bigger and seem chaotic – and yet children are expected to develop independent
e.g. manage their diary.
Autistic girls might likely feel anxious around people – feeling like
they are observing rather than participating. And they might feel lonely, even
among people - and find it hard to relate to others especially those of their
peer group.
Added to this, social things can be overpowering – for example due to sensitivity
to things like smell and touch. They may well develop strong personal interests
– which others might share too – but more intensely or obsessively. They might
pretend to fit in – when they actually feel isolated.
The activities engage with what is overpowering – with what it is like
to come into a new, strange place which doesn’t make sense and to try to make
sense of it, and find a way to interact with strangers there.
(Or… Hercules is the stranger: intruding into an autistic person’s space...)
The activities can also speak to the positives of being autistic, including:
noticing details others might miss; being able to see, hear, and feel intensively;
having good attention to detail; being direct and straightforward.
A final point – this episode isn’t all that well-known – so any user can
be at a similar staring point – autistic people aren’t’ excluded.
A selection of tweets - as promised:
