Over the course
of the Hope-themed postings I’ve been putting up since late September, I have
written on a few occasions about worlds – the world of non-autistic people, and
the world of an autistic person. I have stressed that this is an over-simple
way of dividing up autistic and non-autistic experiences. But I am also aware
that it can be helpful to think in terms of an autistic ‘world’. And one thing I
am seeking to do with the activities I am developing is to engage an autistic
way of being, feeling, thinking, and engaging with others.
I am driven by a view that classical myth can bring something distinctive here. But there is one thing I would like to stress in this posting. This is that I am not trying to give classical antiquity as some kind of ‘gift’ to autistic children. One view of ‘outreach’ activities is as follows: it's that outreach can open up cultural heritage to those who might otherwise be excluded from this heritage. There is a lot that can be great about such activities, but there is also a risk here that those doing the outreach are trying to bring in the ‘reached,’ less ‘privileged’ ones – and I am worried that the result might be that certain, elitist, notions of classics might be being perpetuated.
But there is
another way of coming to this issue. This is the way proposed by Nicola Grove
and Keith Park in their book Odyssey Now.[1] This book adapts some of
the adventures of Odysseus and his companions for disabled people, especially
those with profound disabilities. They stress that one reason for picking
Odysseus was this: the very heritage of the Odysseus story. What they are
offering is an opportunity for people who might be excluded from aspects of a
shared cultural heritage to participate in stories and to encounter characters
whose roots runs deep into a shared culture. And they make the case that basing
their activities around the story of Odysseus, with all its cultural heritage,
can open up cultural experiences to those who might otherwise lack an access to
intellectual life.
There are some
problems with all this. One is that the intellectual life in question is a ‘Western’
one. More than this, it is one shared by a narrow group within such a ‘Western’
civilisation.
Activities using classical myths can help provide ‘cultural knowledge’ to those who might not easily access such knowledge. By ‘cultural knowledge,’ I mean shared beliefs, customs and systems: what Eva Loth describes as “socially shared models or meaning systems, beliefs about the world, which influence the way we perceive, construct, think about, define, and interpret the social world and our experiences in it.”[2] Such activities can also extend people’s experiences in a way that fits what Lev Vygotsky said in his study of cultural-historical psychology about human learning. This was that such learning “presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them.” [3] Could classical myth do this? Could it help autistic children become part of a wider intellectual life?
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| My first gateway: Tales of the Greek Heroes: Retold from the ancient authors by Roger Lancelyn Green. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Date given 1958, but this is presumably to a hardback edition? |
Activities using classical myths can help provide ‘cultural knowledge’ to those who might not easily access such knowledge. By ‘cultural knowledge,’ I mean shared beliefs, customs and systems: what Eva Loth describes as “socially shared models or meaning systems, beliefs about the world, which influence the way we perceive, construct, think about, define, and interpret the social world and our experiences in it.”[2] Such activities can also extend people’s experiences in a way that fits what Lev Vygotsky said in his study of cultural-historical psychology about human learning. This was that such learning “presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which children grow into the intellectual life of those around them.” [3] Could classical myth do this? Could it help autistic children become part of a wider intellectual life?
Maybe – but I
want to come at things from yet another angle. This is the angle of a child
discovering classical myth. I’m meaning a specific child – myself, aged about
ten. This was a very personal discovery. There wasn’t any classical myth told
by, or known by, those around me. My experience of discovering classical myth would
have been different if I had experienced classical myth at home or school. Rather,
I was given a book retelling stories from classical myth by my grandfather, who
didn’t himself know any of the stories. And reading it opened up a world that
fascinated me – but in part because it fuelled my sense of being different. If it
helped me, it was because it gave a kind of refuge.
So… to draw
this posting to a close, I would like to stress that I can see benefits in giving
people access to a shared cultural heritage – to stories of such heroes as
Hercules, who has been part of culture – ‘high’ and ‘low’- at various points
since antiquity. But I am not only seeking a way for autistic children to ‘grow
into’ the intellectual life around them. I am also looking for a way to stimulate
or engage children’s own inner lives.
In a future
posting, I plan to say more about the use Grove and Park make of Odysseus and
to discuss how their approach to Odysseus might have some Herculean
applications.
[1] Nicola Grove and
Keith Park, Odyssey Now, London:
Jessica Kingsley, 1996.
[2] Eva Loth, “Abnormalities
in “cultural knowledge” in Autism Spectrum Disorders: a link between behaviour
and cognition,” in Evelyn McGregor et al., ed. Autism: An Integrated View from Neurocognitive, Clinical, and Intervention
Research, Malden MA etc.: Blackwell) 85.
[3] Lev Vygotsky, Mind
in Society, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978 (published
posthumously), 89.
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