There is a little saying, "Until lions have their own historians, tales of hunting will always glorify the hunter." And that is the basic nature of history: it is subjected to individual interpretation, manipulation and wishful thinking, especially where the evidence was not as carefully preserved, well documented and accessible as it is now. So history is obviously a poor teacher, otherwise it would be more representative of our humanity, not just those with the power and voice, and we would have learnt much more from it.
History cannot be our teacher because we would not be repeating the errors of yesterday, repeating almost the same results without learning any new lessons. Iraq and Vietnam are cases in point. Despite the awful loss of life in Vietnam, the frustration with winning that war and it's sheer viciousness, the capitulation at the end and the general dissatisfaction about US involvement, President Bush happily revisited the sins of his father to do even worse in Iraq. Throwing caution to the wind, he squandered American reputation and trillions of dollars on something he could never hope to win, proving beyond doubt that history had nothing to teach him.
History is also dominated by particular slants and pervasive manipulation as excuses for bad memory. It mainly favours those who can give a good narrative and those who are well known, not the unsung and silent heroes who actually helped to make the substance of that history. We only hear of the great works of great people while every brutal act is downplayed and desensitised to favour the victor. Like the British Empire, an oppressive, racist, colonial regime which forced British customs, administration and language on many races across the world under the guise of 'discovering' new lands and peoples, and 'civilising' them, while robbing them of their resources and extending British power. Yet that has been reported in history as something glorious, a time which put the 'Great' in Britain without acknowledging, until recently, the insensitivity, sheer brutality and racist nature of some its administrations, not to mention the legacy of displacement and loss of local pride that was left.
History could teach us a lot, but it is not the nature of man to learn, otherwise it would curb our innovative spirit through fear of repeating the consequences shown in history. Our nature is to keep creating new history with the hope of changing what has already happened, and definitely bettering it. Not to really learn from it. Hence President Bush's rash past actions. So we are the teachers of history through the mark and legacy we strive to leave behind us, while history cynically leaves a never ending trail of people who keep failing to learn from its recurring and ever potent lessons.