Outstanding Student Work: Exploring the Myth and Meaning of Atlantis

As part of our English class project, based on Think Teen 2—Advanced Level, Unit 2, Lesson 4, my students were invited to explore the fascinating links between Plato’s myth of Atlantis and the real historical events surrounding Helike and Santorini (Thera). Through this exploration of ancient cities and lost civilizations, the students reflected on themes of pride, destruction, and human resilience.

Among the many insightful submissions, one project truly stood out: the work of student STAVROULA IGIPASI-KAZILA

Her essay, titled “Lost Cities, Lost Selves: Helike, Atlantis, and the Mirror of the Deep,” was a beautifully written and deeply thoughtful piece that blended history, philosophy, and mythology. With references to Kafka and Camus, she examined not only the fall of cities but also the illusions we carry as human beings. Her language was poetic, her structure clear, and her message powerful.

This was not just a school assignment—it was a mature, reflective, and inspiring piece of writing that truly deserves recognition. We are proud to share this example of exceptional student work with our school community.

 

Εξαιρετική Μαθητική Εργασία: Εξερευνώντας τον Μύθο και το Νόημα της Ατλαντίδας

Η εργασία της μαθήτριας ΣΤΑΥΡΟΥΛΑΣ ΙΓΗΠΑΣΗ-ΚΑΖΙΛΑ(Γ2), με τίτλο "Χαμένες Πόλεις, Χαμένα Εγώ: Ελίκη, Ατλαντίδα και ο Καθρέφτης του Βυθού" αποτέλεσε μια από τις πιο εντυπωσιακές και πρωτότυπες συμμετοχές στο πλαίσιο του πρότζεκτ  για το μάθημα Αγγλικών, το οποίο βασίστηκε στο Think Teen 2 – Advanced Level, Unit 2, Lesson 4. Οι μαθητές κλήθηκαν να εξερευνήσουν τις συνδέσεις μεταξύ του μύθου της Ατλαντίδας του Πλάτωνα και των πραγματικών ιστορικών γεγονότων γύρω από τις πόλεις της Ελίκης και της Σαντορίνης (Θήρας), εμβαθύνοντας σε θέματα όπως η αλαζονεία, η απληστία και η ανθρώπινη αντοχή.

Η συγκεκριμένη εργασία είναι εξαιρετικά δομημένη, με σαφή ροή και πλούσιο λεξιλόγιο και ξεχωρίζει για το βάθος σκέψης και την ποιητική προσέγγιση του θέματος. Μέσα από τη σύνδεση του μύθου της Ατλαντίδας του Πλάτωνα με τις ιστορικές πόλεις της Ελίκης και της Σαντορίνης, η μαθήτρια εξετάζει φιλοσοφικές έννοιες όπως η ύβρις, η ματαιότητα και η ελπίδα μέσα στην απώλεια. Η αναφορά στους Καμύ και Κάφκα ενισχύει τη φιλοσοφική διάσταση του κειμένου.

Δεν περιορίζεται στην αναπαραγωγή πληροφοριών, αλλά προχωρά σε προσωπική ανάλυση, θέτοντας υπαρξιακά ερωτήματα και εξετάζοντας τη σχέση του ανθρώπου με την πτώση και την ελπίδα.

Αυτή η εργασία αποδεικνύει υψηλό επίπεδο συγγραφικής ικανότητας και φιλοσοφικής σκέψης, και δείχνει ότι η μαθήτρια έχει το δυναμικό να διαπρέψει σε ακαδημαϊκό και δημιουργικό επίπεδο στο μέλλον.

ΜΑΡΙΑ ΔΑΝΙΗΛ
Teacher of English

ΑΚΟΛΟΥΘΕΙ Η ΕΡΓΑΣΙΑ

Lost Cities, Lost Selves: Helike, Atlantis, and the Mirror of the Deep

There are moments when the world speaks to us in quiet. A city vanishes. The ocean consumes a culture. And human beings stand on the beach, hearing the whispers of its own collapse.

There was Helike in ancient Greece. A real city, not mythical, that had prospered on the Corinthian coast—rich, powerful, favored by Poseidon. And then one night in 373 BCE, the earth gaped and the sea churned within. At dawn, Helike was gone. All that remained was fish swimming past temples, and whispers spoken in fear.

Around the same time, Plato gave the world Atlantis—not as fact, but as philosophy in the form of myth. A highly advanced and powerful civilization, brought low by hubris. He did not place it in time, but in memory—a story told by ancient Egyptian priests, he said. But perhaps he was writing out of fear, not fact. Perhaps he had seen in Helike a portent, and given it a reflection.

And so Atlantis may have risen from Helike's remains—or perhaps it was always there, not underwater, but in the spirit: a symbol of humanity's hubris, the never-ending loop of pride and ruin. It is a cycle we are drawn to trace, even as it drives us to the edge yet again.

But the ocean holds more than one secret.

Centuries before Helike, before Plato, was Thera—now Santorini. It once sheltered a flourishing culture, perhaps with contact with the Minoans of Crete. And then, in 1600 BCE, the island erupted in one of the worst most violently dreadful volcanic events in human experience. Ashes clogged the skies, waves crashed on distant coasts, and the world of the Minoans began to disintegrate.

Most today believe that the story of Atlantis may have begun with the ruin of Thera—a memory stretched by time into myth. The Minoans were advanced, gentle, creative. Their palaces were plumbed before much of the world was civilized. And then they disappeared—not suddenly, but gradually, like a flame being put out.

Again, we have the formula: something great, undone. Nature or pride—does not matter. The result is the same.

In Kafka's world, destruction is not loud but slow and confusing. Bureaucratic, senseless, unstoppable. A man wakes up to find he has turned into an insect, or he is trapped in a machine for which there are no exits. In Camus' world, the absurd reigns: we look for meaning in an uncaring universe and go on anyway. Like Sisyphus, doomed to roll his rock forever, we keep building cities, even though we know the sea is coming.

Helike, Atlantis, Thera, the Minoans—these are not places or legends. They are reminders. The sea is omnipresent. The earth always shifts. The fall is not the failure of construction, but of illusion: the illusion of security, of fixity, that the stone will stay atop the hill.

Why do we shudder at the mirror Plato holds up? Because in it, we don't just behold the ruins of cities, but the frailty of ourselves. To look into that mirror is to look at the truth: we are Helike, we are Atlantis, we are Thera. We rise up, we glitter, we implode.

And yet, to look at this truth is to be free.

If there is no immortality of empire, then let us make beauty, not monuments. If no city can be eternal, then let our minds remain pure, our actions just. If the sea will devour everything, then let us leave not gold, but wisdom.

Camus penned, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Perhaps we must imagine those who built Atlantis happy as well, not because their city endured, but because they tried to live well while it did.

In the end, the stories of Helike and Atlantis are not about devastation. They are about the courage to construct in a world that holds out promises of loss. To think, to learn, and to still rise again, understanding the wave will come.

That is the tragedy.

That is freedom.

That is the mirror we must dare to confront.