The History Teacher Outline

Thesis: In the poem The History Teacher, a teacher attempts to protect his students from history by telling different versions of the truth. The negative impact of his teaching is expressed through the understatement of events, irony, and the symbol of the life that these children are a part of.

Understatement:

The teacher takes events in history and takes the literal meaning of the word described. Due to his teaching, students now have a false perception of the world that they live in. When student do not understand the past, they cannot have an understanding of the consequences of their actions.

Example: “The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more than an outbreak of questions” (Lines 7-8).

The students instead of learning the raw facts of the Spanish Inquisition they were taught nothing and the conversation was just made up of questions.

Example: “The War of the Roses” (Line 11). The teacher made a war up about something positive, and now students do not understand the negative connotation of war.

Irony:

Example: “to torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses” (Line 15-18). Despite the teachers want to make the world a perfect place the students still illustrate their evil nature by bullying other students. This is ironic because the teacher did not want to discuss the violence that had occurred in the past, because he wanted to protect his students. In reality his students are violent and do not need to be protected.

Example: “in the Boer War told long, rambling stories designed to make the enemy nod off” (Lines 21-22).

The irony is that the teacher is not even making history more interesting, instead he is making history boring for the students.

Symbol:

Example: “past flower beds and white picket fences” (Line 19).

The teacher now is walking home, and he walks past flowers and white picket fences. His surroundings are a symbol of his student’s lives because they live also in an idyllic world. The realization is if he does not teach them history then who will explain to these students that the world is not a perfect place.