They don't teach this in public school so you aren't a dummy you just haven't been properly taught.
The wave form in the link below shows a complete cycle of a sinusoidal wave. This is how it would look on an oscilloscope. The wave starts at zero volts (ground) and as time goes by (represented by moving to the right). The wave travels up to its highest positive voltage, then travels down through ground to its most negative voltage, then travels back up to 0 volts (ground). This completes one cycle. Hertz is how many cycles you have per second. So 1000 Hertz means 1000 cycles every second.