my blog entry about poetry The history teacheer by billy collins In this poem, the speaker employs situational irony when there is discrepancy between what the history teacher expected to happen and what actually happens to the children. The history teacher understated violent human history to protect the innocence of the children. Specifically, he tells students that the Spanish Inquisition was an outbreak of questions in the third stanza. He also defines Enola Gay as a person who dropped an atom on Japan in the fourth stanza. Finally, the Boer War is referred as a boring war in the last stanza. Comparing to the teacher’s intention, the children shows intensity to the weak at school in that they could not learn the seriousness of violence in human history. Thus, the speaker implies that history should not be distorted for the sake of keeping the innocence of children.