(Summer Camp) Landmarks in Ancient Greek History

(A) Required Experience: 

This is a class for beginners as well as for those who have a basic knowledge on ancient Greek history and religions, and wish to refresh or enrich their knowledge. 

(B) Teaching style and students interaction:

The learning process of this class is based on a combination of a power-point presentation, a lecture that asks students to participate, class dialogue, questions based on the ongoing lecture, and new ideas based on the participants. There is not one universal solution to teach. Rather I combine techniques to achieve the maximum of my strengths and of my students. Having taught so far young kids, teenagers, University students and mature learners, I know that teachers need to approach students with understanding. After all, such a small class has the advantage of making the combined technique of ppt presentation-lecture-dialogue feasible and efficient. Thanks to Zoom, engaging students and interacting with them is always possible. 

(C) Topics to be covered Per Day: 

Day 1: the creation of independent, autonomous self-governed Greek cities; this is the necessary political environment that gave birth to political debate, and ultimately to the freedom of speech - comparison with their neighbouring cultures (Mesopotamia and Egypt)

Day 2: the Greek cities as the necessary fertile ground for the use of philosophical quests and critical thinking in the field of sciences (history, geometry, astronomy, medicine); the Greeks created none of them, but revolutionized them in a way that changed human history for ever.

Day 3: a single Greek city, Athens, gives birth to democracy; the city of Athens created also theatre almost at the same time and for the first time in the western world.

Day 4: the clash of Greece with Persia and the conquest of the Persian Empire by king Alexander III of Macedon; the Macedonian conqueror brought, for one and only time, under one king the Greek, Near Eastern, Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations.

Day 5: upon the death of Alexander and the birth of a new kingdom in Egypt, ruled by a series of Greek kings (the Ptolemies), in the cosmopolitan Greek city of Alexandria Greek and Egyptian scholars are gathered to work in the famous Library and the Museum of Alexandria.