history6

World History - Lesson 6

Jaron Summers

A history book for

Becki, 9, a distant cousin in Canada.

Hi, Becki—Here we are on Chapter Six of the History of the World.

Let’s figure out what we have talked about and try to stitch things together. Kinda connect the dots.

The First Chapter was about you and our forefathers. They were British and when we go back in our history we discovered that the British were pretty warlike and aggressive. Some of the British were bullies.

History is always more fun when you can connect yourself to it. That’s why I talked about our ever-so-great grandfather. The key to studying history is to see how you are connected to other people. So when you read something about history, look for how you relate to that something. You’ll be surprised to find a lot of connections.

Then in Chapter Two, an old friend, pointed out that the British brought some great ideas and concepts to the people they conquered. (So some of the things that I said in Chapter One were wrong.) Now, that’s okay because there is always something wrong in all the first chapters of all books. As a student of history it’s your job to figure out what that is.

And of course there could be more than one mistake, nevertheless, there are usually lots of things in most books of history that are true. And even if they are not true, you can learn lessons from them.

Just don’t believe everything you read. Or hear. Or see on TV.

Chapter Three was about war and how many countries are involved in it, for what seems forever. It’s terrible that there are so many wars but there are also many places on the earth where people live in peace. They watch sunsets, fall in love, have families and walk on beaches or play in the snow.

And if you look for examples, people can be really nice to each other. Usually the papers and TV and history books carry the bad things. But that’s not how the world really is. The fact is your world is how you make it.

Chapter Four was what money is and in Chapter Five I explained how the little guy gets taken advantage by the big guy.

You have to keep your wits about you.

Sure, there are many greedy and selfish people, but there are lots of people who will be kind to you and help you to succeed. So focus on the nice people.

And that usually begins with your family.

Your assignment for this coming week is to do one nice thing for everyone in your family and don’t let them know who did it.

I promise you that you’ll certainly feel good about yourself. (Well, almost for certain.)

People want to feel good about themselves. That is one of the major reasons they go to churches (or synagogues or temples or mosques—to name a few). They have different kinds of bibles and teachings. And now we are getting into a very important aspect of history. Religion.

Religious beliefs have probably shaped the world as much as anything.

We’ll talk about that in the next chapter.

In the meantime, remember your assignment. Do one nice thing for everyone in your family and don’t let them know who did it.

What better way is there to make history than to do something nice for your family?

PS - if you want to read more about acts of kindness, click here.