History

TEACHER: What's your report on?
STUDENT: "The most accurate telling of Australian history"!
TEACHER: In 5 minutes?
STUDENT: In 5 minutes!
TEACHER: LOL! Go for it! [pushing button on watch: BEEP!]
STUDENT: Aboriginal people first appeared in Australia around the Kimberlys where it's pretty nice. Over the next 10,000 years they settled the entire continent. This was good until an ice age started. It lasted for a few thousand years. A lot of people died but some people survived by sticking close to rivers and wet areas where things were a bit better. People in different spots stayed connected with each other through pathways that some think are the origins of 'songlines'—tracks believed to be created by dreaming beings like the Rainbow Serpent. The ice age ended and living in Australia was easier again. As the ice melted, the map of Australia changed to what it looks like today. This took a few thousand years. Tasmania became separate from the mainland. The Torres Strait Islands formed. Different lakes and rivers got created. In all of these different areas, different people found different ways of doing things—different tools, art, technology, diets, hunting and farming tactics, medicines, weapons, traditions, dances, gender roles. Different groups still interacted with each other for everyone's gain. They'd hold corroborees to share goods, exchange news, have fun, find love, and keep conflict between groups to a minimum. Then white people on boats came and took over. Thanks.
TEACHER: What? What about Captain Cook? Convicts? Anzacs? Multiculturalism?
STUDENT: I said this was the most accurate telling of history, Miss.
STUDENT: Indigenous people have been here for 40,000 years. All that stuff happened in the last 250 years.
STUDENT: [tapping on calculator] That's 0.6% of all Australia's history. So I gave it 0.6% of my time.
STUDENT: I didn't want to short-change anything.
TEACHER: Hmmm.
STUDENT: Is this too much maths for history?