Autism and Classical Myth: Black History Month, Being Human Festival and lesson writing

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.

Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Black History Month, Being Human Festival and lesson writing - some quick updates

Around the time I last posted to this blog, I set myself a deadline of the middle of October to complete a draft of the book of lessons based on Hercules for autistic children. Since then, I've been intensively writing and have... just this afternoon... completed a draft of the book and sent it to some dear colleagues for comments. I'm now going to immerse myself in preparing for two events I'm organising within the next month. One is a remote 'show and tell' for Black History Month UK of classics and children's culture - to take place a week tomorrow, on Weds 21 October. The other is an online 'Hercules Cafe' for this year's UK Being Human Festival on Wednesday 12 November. More to follow on this latter event! And on the lessons...