All about Roehampton, autism and classical myth - including some updates!

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...