Explication of "The History Teacher"

Chapter Seven in sound in sense talks about irony. Irony is when something has a meaning that extends beyond its use as a figure of speech. In the poem irony of situation seems to play a large role, this is when a discrepancy exists between the actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate. The chapter also talks about euphemisms which are substitutions of less severe terms in place of those that might be offensive.

In Billy Collins' poem, The History Teacher, both situational irony and euphemisms are at play. The speaker of the poem is telling a story of a history teacher. This particular teacher is extremely concerned with protecting his seemingly young students from the harsh truth and maintaining their innocence. He does so by replacing the offensive truths of the past with euphemisms. One example is "he told them the Ice Age was really just / the Chilly Age, a period of millions of years / when everyone had to wear sweaters" (2-4). He uses a euphemism in changing  "Ice" to "Chilly" and feels as if he is protecting his students from the past in doing so.

The situational irony is not revealed until later in the poem. It is revealed that on the playground, the kids in the history class are actually the bullies: "The children would leave his classroom / for the playground to torment the weak and the smart, / mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses" (14-17). Although it seems as if protecting the kids from the violent nature of the world would make them more peaceful, it actually has the opposite affect on them. The teacher is naive to the effect that his lessons have on his students. The serious message of the poem is that we learn from our mistakes and that is why they are not repeated. By learning about the bad things in the world the kids are unable to take lessons away from what they learn. Learning the harsh truth is a necessity in maturing and learning right from wrong.