Comparing The History Teacher 'And Outdistanced'

The use of line breaks and irony in the two poems “The History Teacher” by Billy Collins and “Outdistanced” by Larry Rubin punctuates the shared theme that a willful lack of self-awareness can quickly lead to a greater societal ignorance of what should shape humanity.
In “The History Teacher,” the teacher demonstrates that he has little self-awareness in the fact that in he does not teach actual history at all, but rather highly censored euphemisms that remove all violence and suffering from historical events. Thus, the irony of a history teacher not actually teaching history emerges right from the start of the poem. Further on in the poem, Collins continues the use of irony by explaining how the children would leave this violence-free classroom “for the playground to torment the weak/and the smart,” establishing that the

children, despite their teacher “trying to protect his students’ innocence,” are not at all strangers to violence, to the point where they create it themselves (14-15, 1).

Through the irony in this description of ineffective censorship by a history teacher who elects not to teach the truth of historical events, Collins illustrates that attempting to completely shield children from the violence in the world can have an opposite effect. By not learning about the brutality and human suffering that has occurred in the past, people may never gain that sense of empathy that is so vital to human existence, causing them to have few misgivings about becoming the perpetrators of violence themselves. Similarly, in “Outdistanced” Rubin uses irony to show one way that a lack of understanding about one’s own position, as well as about that of others, can have negative effects. In the poem, a younger narrator is annoyed when an old man becomes an obstacle to his quick pace. Preparing to hurry by the old man, the narrator compares himself to the sun outstripping a star that is the old man. However, when he does pass the old man, the narrator looks over at him, expressing to the reader, “He has my face” (9). The irony in this moment is that just a few lines before, the young man believed himself to be more important than

the old man, but then realizes that, in actuality, they are the same. The closed, arrogant perspective of the younger man and his inability to understand the viewpoint of his elder leave him feeling disdain for the older man until he finally has this moment of realization. Through this scenario, Rubin notes that when one chooses to have an attitude of self-centeredness rather than one of understanding and self-awareness, it can prevent one from having a proper respect for the wisdom and past experience of older people. Rushing through life with a feeling of superiority over their elders can keep people from accessing the lessons learned in bygone days, losing an opportunity for personal growth and increased perception. In both poems, the use of irony sheds light on the fact that when people do not gain an appropriate appreciation for the past, instead opting to remain in ignorance, those people may cause needless suffering to others, losing sight of the importance of empathy to their humanity.