From Antigone of Thebes to Greta Thunberg Erasmus Project

Project Title

From Antigone of Thebes to Greta Thunberg

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

From Antigone of Thebes to Greta Thunberg, two young women say no by revolting against a system governed by the laws of men, they put forward higher and nobler principles. The parallel drawn between a contemporary figure and the other one coming from the Greek tragedy sheds light on the news dominated by the increasingly prominent place of women in our European society : on January 22nd 2020, Ekaterini Sakellaropoulou was thus elected President of the Greek republic. However, there is still a long way to go…
Other female figures are likely to support our thinking and to enable us to establish links between Antiquity and the modern world. Does Helen have any responsibility in the Trojan War: guilty or a victim? Under influence or fully agreeing? Isn’t Sappho, a Greek poet and the leader of a strictly female school, the first feminist and LGBT activist? The fate of Hypatia, a philosopher and a scientist of the 4th century, murdered by obscurantist religious, also has echoes in today’s world. There are therefore many examples.
At a time when debates about women’s rights, feminicides, cases of sexual harassment, feminization of the language or new procreation methods are invading the screens and the universe of our students, it seems to us that the passage by Antiquity is a stimulating bias for their reflection and their civic awareness. Our project, entitled in a somewhat provocative way “from Antigone of Thebes to Greta Thunberg”, will seek to promote equality between women and men, to encourage reflection on gender stereotypes, to develop European values of citizenship, democracy and of equality through the prism of women’s rights and the use of great mythical or historical figures of the Greek Antiquity.
This reflection will be done by proposing to our students to go toward the other by associating Greek and French schools separated by more than 2000 km but sharing a common heritage. Our students from rural and / or disadvantaged backgrounds, who suffer from the difficulties of geographic and cultural isolation, will be able to confront other ways of thinking and another reality. 60 pupils are concerned, 17 Greek pupils of the Soufli high school who study French, about 40 Norman pupils of the Querqueville middle school and the Millet high school all studying ancient Greek.
The purpose of our project is not to provide our students with some kind of “readymade thinking” material but to mobilize their reflection and their questioning through activities using their creativity. They will thus work on the development and staging of a common theatrical performance focusing on women in Antiquity with a contemporary look. The students involved in the project will stage ancient texts and play skits written by them who will take a new look at ancient situations and shed light on current debates. Beforehand, various digital activities, developed using the eTwinning platform, will enable the students to get in touch and get familiar with the project’s issues. Oral competence will be at the heart of the activities in a process of progressive learning. The show will offer short films developed jointly through digital technology and during exchanges, it will be played in France, on the occasion of a week of Europe that the Lycée Millet wishes to set up with European students from different exchanges programs existing within the school. A documentary film will show the creation stages of the spectacle and will prolong it. The dissemination of the project will be facilitated by pre-existing media, the lycée’s LCA site and the Lca Millet facebook account.
As regards the teaching team, this Erasmus project, built on an interdisciplinary approach with teachers of ancient Greek, French, economic and social sciences, history-geography, plastic arts, cinema, theater, documentation but also local actors, will enable to exchange around a common objective and to make practices evolve. Through all these aspects, our Erasmus project seeks to fit into the different European priorities while being part of regional education projects. It aims at contributing to the academic success and to the ambition of the pupils within the framework of their schooling places and their particular problems, while developing their own awareness of a true European citizenship based on common values beyond geographic frontiers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 0 Eur

Project Coordinator

LYCEE GENERAL ET TECHNOLOGIQUE JEAN-FRANCOIS MILLET & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Collège Jules Ferry Querqueville
• General Lyceum of Soufli