"Outstanding books" about autism Part 3: Funny - you don't look autistic

For a couple of weeks now I have been live-blogging as I work though matches for ‘autism’ in IBBY’s guide to “outstanding books” for disabled young people.

@omchildhood tweet promoting the previous posting

Since the previous posting, I have come to feel confirmed in my thinking that live-blogging could be a thing – from reading the draft of a blog by a student I’m currently teaching who has started, excitingly, live-blogging scholarship relevant to the particular mythological topic she is investigating.

As I mentioned in the previous posting, the next match – to something in English – has an attention-grabbing title of Funny, you don’t look autistic. It’s Canadian, again from 2019, by a stand-up comedian, Michael McCeary:

McCreary, Michael (text), Funny, You Don’t Look Autistic Toronto, Canada: Annick Press, 2019 [176pp.] ISBN 978-1-77321-257-9

It’s the first of the matches to be a work of non-fiction: it is presented in the evaluation as “a mix of life story and facts about the subject he knows best – autism” (p.36). It tells about the author’s experiences, for example with bullies, along with what are described as “information sidebars”.

The evaluator concludes by telling the potential reader “what will stick in your mind is a fuller understanding of living life in a different way” (p.36 again). So – the evaluation, though perhaps not the book, is assuming a non-autistic reader wanting to understand an autistic experience. It is not clear if the book is for adults, or children, or for autistic or non-autistic readers.

There is a potential mismatch, then, between the possible readership imagined by the IBBY evaluator and the title of the guide which refers to books “for” disabled young people (emphasis added).

I’ve just done a very quick search for the author. According to what I have found out, he is in his twenties, was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome when aged 5, and – according to the webpage from a the Kingston WritersFest, where he performed in 2019, seeks to address, in his words “the lighter side of Asperger’s” while doing something serious, via comedy as “the only medium…that can turn a perceived disability into a weapon.” It sounds from this very quick and initial dive that the author might very well do his stand-up routines with non-autistic people in mind, though I’m not sure yet. 

The next match – I’d wondered whether there would be another one as I am now quite far down the catalogue – again has a sticking, this time a Bowie-esque, title: Planet Earth is Blue. I’ll get to it as soon as I can – hopefully tomorrow…

 

More live-blogging “outstanding books” for autistic young people - Part 2: This is my life

My last posting explained why I’ve decided to try something different blogging wise, namely what I’m terming (possibly reinventing the wheel!) “live blogging”. I must check…

Since then I’ve had encouraging feedback including my Myths and Mythology class, and… so… here’s Part 2.

In the first posting, I ran though the evaluation of the first entry that concerns "autism" in IBBY’s catalogue of “outstanding books” for disabled young people, namely IA uchus v chetvertom KRO (My special education class, grade 4). I ended by saying that I’d found the next match, to a book in Swedish translated into English as This is my life.

Image copied over from previous posting -
taken from @omchildhood announcing IBBY's catalogue

Here are the full details: Lagercrantz, Rose (text) Furmark, Annelie (ill.), Detta är mitt liv (This is my life) Stockholm, Sweden: Bonnier Carlsen Bökforlag, 2019 [112pp.] ISBN 978-91-7803-333-1

This book, unlike the previous one, focuses on a single child, a girl, called Sophia. A girl! So this book might fit the current move to recognise girls as autistic not least when so many women are diagnosed only as adults. 

The girl, Sophia, the evaluation states, is about to turn 14 and “has always felt different” from the other children at her summer camp, either because of “typical teen insecurity” or “because she is autistic” (p. 35 – all quotations from the entry will be from this page).

The focus, I’m told, is on emotions Sophia feels as she prepares to convey to her fellow children at the camp what it is like to be her. The evaluation states that the format, a graphic novel, can aid in conveying the “emotions and reactions” of the characters, including Sophia’s mother.

So – a couple of things to note.

One is that, the book deals with how an autistic girl conveys what it is like to experience life as she does to other people. I am assuming non-autistic other people.

Also, as I’ve noted, the evaluation states that the graphic focus can provide a useful tool to convey emotions - but for whom I wonder: autistic young readers? or neurotypical young readers to help them understand autistic peers? adults like Sophia’s mother. Ah here is the possible answer, from the conclusion to the entry, which states that the book will “resonate not only with teens on the autistic spectrum, but also with any teen who has worried about fitting in”.

I think I like this – non-autistic people can learn from autistic people’s experience. It is not just the other way round...

The next match – to something in English, has an attention-grabbing title of Funny you don’t look autistic. I’ll live blog it as soon as I can!  I’m at just over 400 words which is fine I think for a blog entry – though I do often go longer! – in any case…

Live blogging IBBY’s books for disabled young people - part 1… IA uchus v chetvertom KRO (My special education class, grade 4)

Live blogging IBBY’s books for disabled young people - part 1…  IA uchus v chetvertom KRO (My special education class, grade 4)

Thanks to my Our Mythical Childhood colleagues, I have just found out about IBBY – the International Board on Books for Young People. And, more specifically, and in line with this blog’s topic, I have found out about their selection – annotated – of recent “outstanding books for young people with disabilities”.

As I write I am about to search for the key word ‘autism’ to see if anything comes up. And...

...There are 12 matches for ‘autism’ starting with a book, in Russian, a short novel from 2019 called – in the English translation which, I assume, is IBBY’s – My special education class, grade 4.

Full details: Belenkova, Kseniya (text) Khramtsov, Alexander (ill.)
IA uchus v chetvertom KRO (My special education class, grade 4), Moscow: Meshcheryakov, 2019 [88pp.] ISBN 978-5-00108-355-9

I’m now going to adapt ‘live tweeting’ with some ‘live blogging’ where I work though the matches. I’m not sure how many books will come up, so I don’t know how much there will be to blog on. I might well blog on one book at a time. I don’t know yet!

I’ll look up what ‘Grade 4’ means in the Russian education system. As an aside, first I shall mention the sense of curiosity and excitement I am feeling at the prospect of doing something I really need to do more – namely to learn more about non-anglophone works for children, especially when, as I have stressed in relation to the current autism and myth project, I very much hope to reach across borders, of various kinds.

 The novel – from the evaluator’s summary – offers perspectives of several children in the class, each of whom considers their classmates to be “strange” (p.28 – all quotations will be from this page). The evaluator likes how the book focuses on each child as an individual: “each one” they say “is unique and deserves to be heard.” The focus is, I’m reading, the classroom, but I’m told too the book also deals with issues outside school including some difficult home situations. 

I am not sure what ages of readers are intended. But at least I shall finally look up what “Grade 4” means. I put “Education in Russia” into the search engine – and, a bit worryingly, doing this threw up hits for Special Education in Russia, which I hadn’t asked for.

 Ah – the “Grade 4’ seems to be a translation of the North American grade system, so refers to ages 9-10.

Oh I never said, as part of what looks to be the book’s emphasis on children as individuals before any disability, it is never said what the disabilities are though the evaluator says that “This would likely be autism along with other disabilities.” One follow up question I have, then, is how often do children know – around the world – that they are for example, neurodivergent or autistic, or have been diagnosed as such? If they are not told, what might it mean for them, at some later point, to learn of this?

Anyway, now to look for the next match – it’s for a book in Swedish again from 2019, called in the English translation This is My Life. I’ll blog about it after a break, during which I need to get on with a few other things…

 

Autism and classical myth: now on video...

As I've mentioned a few times this autumn, students I'm teaching for a module on classical myth are blogging as their assessment for the module. As I have written postings to date, I have done so with their assignments in mind including to give a flavour of what academic blogging can look like - while stressing that other blogs are available. 

The students also have an option of an another pathway - of creating a video diary. I've been meaning to share some videos of me talking, again to show how videoing *can* - not necessarily should - be done. And, now, by coincidence, colleagues at the Our Mythical Childhood project have created a YouTube channel for the Acclaim Network. It includes to date two videos where I'm talking, with more to follow. 

In the first that should come up by clicking the link, I'm zooming into a conference in Israel in June 2021 to talk about the lessons I was then completing for autistic children based around an episode involving Hercules facing a choice between two pathways. 

You will see me holding up objects including a statue, sharing a concern about filibustering myself, defending colouring-in activities, talking about emotions and autism, sharing what's happened when autistic children encounter Hercules, including via Disney, and talking - including in the screenshot above - about the object on which the lessons focus: a Choice of Hercules chimneypiece panel 5 minutes from my office in Grove House, Roehampton...

The other video is earlier - from several years back, in 2014, before I had become struck that the panel in Grove House might become a focus of the lessons for autistic children I was tentatively planning. I had already become deeply interested in the panel - and in the video I share that interest with Dr Anastasia Bakogianni of Classics Confidential.

More videos to follow - including of me zooming into events at Manchester Metropolitan University, King's College London and the University of Reading...

Neurodiverse Classics: constructive connections

I write with news: this blog's topic will be on the programme of next April's Classical Association conference! 

Back in the summer, I had a very enjoyable time building up a proposal along with a group of classicists beyond and within 'the academy' for a panel on neurodiversity and classics. I would have loved to have mentioned this at the time, but decided that I had better not, in case the proposal didn't find its way onto the programme. 

But it wasn't turned down - we recently heard the good news that the panel has been accepted. And so I am now, at last, about to share the proposal. I'll start with an image from one of the hosts of the panel: Asterion, the Minotaur.

Asterion!

And here's the proposal:

The pandemic and lockdown have focussed attention on inequalities in society, and perhaps especially in the educational sector. Students in schools and beyond have reacted very variously to online provision, and some neurodivergent students have been able to flourish online. Social anxiety has been reduced, and different ways of learning have been accommodated (e.g. repetition of material via online hosting). This panel brings together students, lecturers, teachers and heritage professionals to explore ‘constructive connections’ between neurodiversity and classics.

In order to exemplify the kind of inclusive practices that work for many neurodivergent classicists, as well as for others, the panel proposes a variety of complementary formats. We plan a series of short, pre-recorded videos on the topics listed below, to be hosted by the CA in advance of and during the conference. Asterion, a new online space celebrating neurodiversity in classics, will host a series of blogposts as part of a week-long event on the theme of ‘constructive connections’, ideally in partnership with the CA. Comments and questions on these and on the videos will be invited from conference participants, and these will be addressed and discussed by a roundtable of the panellists, in a live online session of the conference. If the CA prefers that this live session be in-person, panel members will accommodate that, but it is important to note that the online dimension fosters and exemplifies good practice for neurodivergent classicists. Finally, panel members will be happy to staff a table or stall during the conference, in person, in order to engage in-person attendees with the videos and blog, and to foster further networking among those interested in neurodiversity and classics.

Topics for videos:

Justin Biggi, How classics helped navigate neurodiverse diagnoses, how my neurodiversity informs my understanding of the classics.

Susan Deacy, The ACCLAIM: Autism Connecting CLAssically-inspired Mythology Network and classical myth resources for autistic children.

Cora Beth Fraser, The Relaxed Tutorial Project: designing inclusive approaches to online teaching in universities.

Laura Jenkinson, Making things easier for Neurodiverse school pupils

Claudina Romero Mayorga, Tactile and multisensorial teaching tools in museums

Ben Tanner, Resources for teaching classics online

Justine T. Wolfenden, Asterion: the case for a network to celebrate and support neurodiversity in Classics 

I very much anticipate blogging further about the panel as April nears...

Gods are strange...

Like my previous few postings this autumn, the current one responds to the most recent topic on the Myths and Mythology module I am currently teaching at Roehampton. I have posted previously on myth and community and on myth and gender, always in relation to an autistic 'lens'. 

This current posting relates to the most recent session, which was on myth and gods. I'm going to continues with reference to an autistic lens but only briefly for now. I'm going to set out some initial ideas and then build on these in later postings. At least that's the plan - and if the plan changes, for example, in response to something that comes up in class that stirs me into blogging about it (compare the previous posting!), I'll set out why...

We discussed in class how ancient gods are entities that modern people often try too hard to make sense of, in part because these deities are so much a part of 'Western' culture. However, as we discussed, ancient gods are strange. They were strange to the ancients who venerated and mythologised them. They are stranger than modern scholarship often allows.

In upcoming postings I plan to look into this strangeness in relation to the two female personages - goddesses? personifications? women? - that Herakles (himself 'god' and 'hero') encounters at a curious place - a parting of the roads.

It is an encounter that - including because of its strangeness, and because of the strangeness of its gods - can resonate with being autistic. More to come on this point... For now, including to give a few scholarly perspectives, here are three instances where strangeness *is* part of the study of ancient gods.

1. A book by S.C. Humphreys whose title, The Strangeness of Gods, was inspired by an anthropological study of religion by Pascal Boyer which emphasises, according to Humphreys, that "what we call 'religion' is always an engagement with the unknown and extraordinary". Note that the cover image for this book - one of the three images that heads this posting - evokes such strangeness via a depiction of Herakles on a red-figure cup now in the Gregorian Etruscan Museum, Vatical city. Like when he reaches the crossroads, Herakles is here in another strange place, a bowl, which looks to be carrying him across the sea (unless the bowl happens 'just' to be painted with sea creatures and waves)...

2. The series Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World which is concerned with figures that are 'part of our culture' but 'has another aim too, to explore their strangeness'. I wrote this in 2017 ahead of the publication of several new volumes in the series, starting with Hermes by Arlene Allan. I'm currently, four years on , rewriting the foreword for the next volume due out. The familiarity vs strangeness point is one that I intend to keep in.

3. Thirdly, the chapter 'Analyzing Greek Gods' from Robert Parker's On Greek Religion which, in posing the question 'what is a Greek god?', includes a discussion of an image - now in the Staatliche Museum in Munich - of one of the major gods, indeed of a god so major that he can count as 'god' or even 'God', namely Zeus. As we discussed in class, Zeus is often depicted looking like an adult man, just one holding something extraordinary, the thunderbolt. But this is Zeus as a huge serpent - Zeus Meilichios - a Zeus who is strange (as Zeus always in fact is...).

More soon...