History homework instructions don't make sense to me!!

[cakedup]

DS is in Year 8. Am I missing something here? Because I really don't understand how DS is meant to do this homework. The homework is
to challenge David Hume's interpretation of Africans in 1748.

David Hume wrote one book in 1748. It is pages and pages of very intricate philosophical musings. I can't imagine any Year 8 understanding it, and having skimmed it I can't even find the part about Africans.

How are we meant to find his interpretation to challenge??

Bloody hell, I'm a History teacher and I think that's a very tough/strange homework for Year 8. It doesn't sound like it's been explained properly either. Send a note in to ask for the teacher for clarification

THANK YOU bettyboo40. That's so reassuring to hear. We've done our best and I'm writing a note now.

Great Zimbabwe is an archaeological site from memory, that demonstrates that complex civilisations existed in Africa well prior to the musings of Hume and co, and over vast periods of time and space on the continent.

Ah, that makes sense LineysRun .

I don't know much about Great Zimbabwe, but there is a BBC programme called Black peoples of the Americas I show to the pupils, that has a section on it, and how many skilled people lived and worked there and it was a great civilisation etc. I wonder if their teacher showed them the same thing and wanted them to use the information from the film as the counter-interpretation.

Whynotnowbaby you sound like a nice teacher! I'm afraid at DS' school they are just not interested in 'excuses' and will often hand out detentions without hearing a student out.

Otherwise, where was she expecting them to get this information from? The internet? I wonder if she forgot to give out a sheet with a summary of the text they need to use (and a glossary, explanation of the difficult bits etc!)

I would never hand out a detention if a note from home was brought in, explaining how the pupil had had a go, but genuinely found it too difficult.

bettyboo40 well I tried to get the information from the internet, and as you can see, it wasn't easy!

I would've thought a note would help too. DS came home yesteday, having forgotten his planner which had his Maths homework log in details written down (turns out it wouldn't have taken him to the right homework anyway, because he has just moved to another maths group). The maths homework was set yesterday, due in for today. He was beside himself with worry but completed some other maths questions I found on the internet for him (same subject) so he at least had something to hand in. I also wrote a note, explaining. He went into school extra early to look for his planner which he found, then spent his first break getting the right log in details and his second break doing as much of it as he can. Because of this, he had nothing to eat all day. Despite handing in his alternative homework and starting the actual homework AND a note from me, he still got a detention!

Great Zimbabwe was a city at the centre of a powerful African kingdom around 1000 years ago. It was supposedly the capital city of the Queen of Sheba.

There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white
This statement is directly disproved by Great Zimbabwe existence, other evidence would be the Mesoamerican cities of the Incas and Aztecs

Hume obviously had the same beliefs as many of his contemporaries although has carefully not noticed Egypt.

Historians writing now obviously know he was wrong.

The conclusion would be Hume was racist through ignorance rather than malice and his views at the time would not have been out of the ordinary.