Stephen Wilshire draws Rome

It is a rare moment when I am able to connect autism with what I teach, Classics—that is, the ancient Greek and Latin languages, literatures, and culture–in my classroom. I chanced upon this video—perhaps you have seen it—-of Stephen Wilshire, an autistic artist who can look at a building, or a cityscape, and draw it exactly.

Here is Wilshire riding in a helicopter over the Eternal City and then drawing it.

My Elementary Latin class had had enough of the relative pronoun (qui, quae, quod; “who, which, that”) and how to do a synopsis of verbs. I pulled down the screen, went to YouTube, and we went to Rome—-through an autistic man’s eye-view.

In the final segment of this short video, the exactitude and accuracy of Wilshire’s drawing ability is tested. His rendition of the Pantheon (my favorite building in Rome) is short a few lines here and there. Wilshire, it seems, draws extreme detail—rows of tiny windows, the tiny, winding streets of Rome—with more ease: His rendition of the Colisseum was proved perfect when Wilshire’s pencil drawing was superimposed atop a screen short of the real thing. My students—even the seasoned Jersey urban types—gasped.

After class, one student stayed to talk to me about an essay for an application (I also advise students who are applying for special scholarships and for graduate school). As he placed his essay on the table, he said, “So how is your son doing?”

“Really good,” I said. “He really likes his school.” And I told him about how structured Charlie’s classroom is, the exacting attention to his particular learning style and needs, the focus on him and who he is and how to foster learning from there.

Charlie, like Stephen, likes to be sure of the details.