The innocence of every little one, of every child, how important is it? Should we tell them that Santa is fictional? Should we even create Santa for children? What about the Tooth Fairy, or the Easter Bunny? Are they black lies, even if they're meant well? Do our intents outweigh our actions? And up to what extent? In the case of Santa, many would argue that our intents indeed outweigh our white lies because of the great joy that comes to kids in the form of Santa. But how do know when we go too far? In "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins, the teacher in the poem "teaches" the students about the world's history. "Trying to protect his students' innocence," he turns the Spanish Inquisition into a mere series of questions, changes the location of the War of Roses to a garden, and converts the Enola Gay into "one tiny atom" that was dropped on Japan. After his lesson, the students leave the classroom to "torment the weak and the smart, mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses." As this happens, the teacher walks home "past flower beds and white picket fences" thinking up new stories for the next day.
The teacher believes that he's doing the right thing to keep the children "protected" by tweaking history. He wants the students to see the world as perfect, where everyone lives in harmony. However, the children themselves don't live in harmony with each other and harass each other on the playground. The children themselves are not as innocent as the teacher believes them to be. When the author writes about the kids tormenting each other, he implies that the the tormenting occurs every day, indicating that the teacher either knows this is happening and ignores it or lives so deeply in his own perception of the world that he doesn't see the tormenting at all. Therefore, while the teacher's intent is seems to be appropriate, the sheltering provides no benefits, and actually harms the children, since the students are led to think that fighting with each other has no real consequences.
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