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.

Thursday, 4 June 2020

CIRSIE talk, Primary Schools Partnership Newsletter and unexpectedly reading about "a fantastic and hilarious adventure"

I have mentioned a few times in blog postings of late that I have been rethinking my plans for my autism and classical myth project. The PLAN at the start of the year had been to use the various presentations I was to be giving during to share my progress and gain feedback and also as a set of mini-deadlines for myself.
As I have said previously, I gave the first of these presentations in February a few weeks before the lockdown. The first event to be cancelled was one I'd been very much looking forward to. This was a presentation to CIRSIE: The Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Special and Inclusive Education at Roehampton.

This presentation would have built on a previous talk I gave at the Centre when my research was at an earlier stage. I had been looking forward to updating colleagues in Special Needs Education, and hopefully, elsewhere in the University, on the project. But what I had been especially anticipating was the opportunity to share my ideas with school teachers.

The event was publicised in the University's Primary Schools Partnership Newsletter for February 2020 and school teachers were planning to come. I would have shared my experiences - all very provisional ones - taking the activities into a school. The possibility of being able to discuss future such activities was exciting me. I hope that such activities will still be able to take place, including now that primary schools in the UK have reopened...

I was honoured to see the notice for my talk among reports and notices which show the vibrancy of Primary Education at Roehampton. The online version is here. The notice about my talk is on page 20.

I was going to end here. But, looking again at the newsletter, something leapt out at me from the page before the one which includes the CIRSIE talk notice. It's during an interview with Christopher Arman, a Roehampton graduate who now works as a primary school teacher. One of the questions asks Christopher to recommend some works of children's literature. The one he talks about in the most detail is one that also bears on the Our Mythical Childhood project - which my autism and classical activities are part of. It's Who Let the Gods Out by Maz Evans, a work which, from the perspective of Classics, is as among the most innovative and imaginative reworking of classical myth for children in recent years.

Christopher says that the book is "a fantastic and hilarious adventure" (19) which is doing wonders encouraging children to read. What Christopher says bears out the views expressed in the entry on the same book in the Our Mythical Childhood Survey by - in a further nice coincidence - Bobby Sadler, another Roehampton graduate, this time in Classics and Creative Writing.

One follow-up now will be to email colleagues to see whether they can put me in touch with Christopher.

More soon...

No comments: