The History Teacher

Little children are born innocent, and most parents try to keep that innocence. For example, if a young child's grandfather dies, their parents wouldn't say, "Oh yeah, Grandaddy's dead. You'll never see him again." Their parents would probably say something like, "Grandaddy went to be with Grammy forever, don't worry though, he's happy now and in a better place."

This weekend, we had to read "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins. In the poem, the history teacher is describing historical events by what it sounds like happened in very mild and kind terms. Some people believe that he was flat out lying to the kids, some believe that he was just protecting their innocence. I side with the people that believe he was protecting their innocence because I tend to see the good in people. I think that because his intentions were good, he shouldn't be criticized. He was just trying to keep the kids innocent for as long as possible because its so easy in this day and age to become very cynical or to go down "the wrong path."

However, the history teacher not telling the kids the whole truth is kind of like growing up not knowing about your past or ancestors; what if you didn't know something about your family's history but everyone around you did? What if it was something important, like the fact that the Enola Gay didn't just drop a tiny atom. How freaky would it be if everyone knew something about you that you didn't?