Over the years, I have often begun blog postings with a picture that in some way encapsulates what I’m going to say - not least as it’s a great way to start populating the blank page.
This current posting gets going with a picture of a place dear to me, Grove House, just short distance from where I am as I write
in my office looking over at the woodland marking the boundaries between two of
the colleges of Roehampton University: Digby Stuart where I’m based, and Froebel,
the home of Grove House.
What follows is a tweaked version
of an answer I wrote earlier today in response to a correspondent’s question
about my work at Roehampton and how far my project for autistic children
involves classics.
I am writing this posting because I quite like how I framed
my response, and also to give a quick progress update to anyone reading this
blog.
The room beyond the left-hand pillar in the photograph, behind the tree, is the
Adam Room, which contains a chimney piece panel showing the choice of Hercules. This panel is the focus of a book I've written - due out by September - of classical
myth-based lessons for autistic children.
The book is
primarily for professionals and practitioners looking to utilise the appeal of
mythology in work with autistic children and the lessons are designed with
children of any age from aged seven up - though a recent session extending one of the
lessons included a six-year-old whose engagement was amazing so they could can
appeal to younger children too.
The lessons have
been piloted with children at Key Stage 2 in the English school system though
also with older children, and with adults, and with mixed groups including
mixes of neurodivergent and neurotypical people.
It all started when
I heard from a special needs teacher that in her experience and that of her
colleagues, autistic children often enjoy myth. I began to wonder why and
whether I could turn my own love of myth towards experiential applications.
I started blogging
in 2008 to share initial progress and the project moved to another level in
2016 when along with a project team in Poland, Australia, Cameroon and Israel,
I embarked on a major European Research Council-funded project researching
classical in children's and young adult culture - as the Roehampton Principal
Investigator (Our Mythical Childhood… The Reception of Classical Antiquityin Children’s and Young Adults’ Culture in Response to Regional and Global Challenges).
The book is an
outcome of the project. One thing that drives my practice - for this current
project and everything I do - is a conviction that classics, this most
traditional of subjects, can resonate with people who encounter e.g. classical
mythology.
So often a chance
encounter via, say, a video game or film impacts on people so I want to get
classics wherever I can - because doing this makes a difference.
Recently I have
been extending the lessons for children at Pupil Referral Units - at Keats
House in Hampstead in London which is a cultural partner of Roehampton University
and at another eighteenth-century site, Mount Clare on the Roehampton campus
for a youth education programme in London - Proud Places.
All this is just
taking off - and I'm doing it very much as a Roehampton person who loves doing
what Roehampton does namely what I just said - making a difference.
Here I am in 2016
introducing a group of young women from London schools to the chimney piece in
the Adam Room:
Now here I am this year at Mount Clare guarding the temple with the students mentioned earlier in this current posting. Also, the previous posting on this blog says more about the session at Mount Clare:
More soon, including on the session at Keats House...
