WRITE a blog post in which you discuss, explain, muse upon the single most important thing you learned in Modern World History this year. It can be about history; it can be about the study of history; it can be about current events; it can be about yourself as a student, as a scholar, as a thinker, as a world citizen; it can be about other people. It can be anything.
I think the main thing I learned (if you're really forcing me to choose one..) is that history and the world is not just lots and lots of separate events that happen, and then they're done. They are all connected. Every single event in every corner of the world affects another part of the world, maybe in that same second, or maybe in a hundred years. Even more importantly, when we look at these events all together, and when we make connections, we can notice patterns. We can analyze the past in a way that makes sense, and is useful to know. If paper clips are events, the world is like what happens will you dump a million paper clips in one big bowl. They all connect. Whether we want them to or not, those little hooks latch onto each other and they all string together in complicated ways, and it would be impossible to unhook them all.
I don't think I'll ever meet someone who loves connections more than Ms. Pugliese, but really, connections are probably the most important lesson in history. I now know that we can't just make a decision as a nation, thinking that once it's done, we can just forget about it. It's going to be remembered for years to come, and it's going to be compared to other events in history that we might not even know about. It's going to matter.
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