We called him “The Wild Irishman.” Maybe it was because that was the name of our favorite game to play in his class. Or perhaps it was because he was indeed an Irishman, and no one would disagree with the descriptor “wild.” The stage was seventh grade Geography class, which sounded as if it had the potential to be the most boring class of middle school, yet Mr. Tobin made it great.
When we studied South America, he came into class one day dressed as a gaucho. Standing atop his desk, he described his lifestyle as an unruly horseman. He explained Buddhism and Hinduism, completely new concepts to us in our small Southern town. When we learned to identify the countries of Africa, there were tips and tricks to help us match the shapes of countries to their names. And when we learned about Ireland – well, that was a special day.
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At the end of seventh grade, our class filed into the multipurpose room where there were long pieces of paper and markers set up across the room. We were split into groups and given the ultimate final exam: draw the world freehand, from memory. The results weren’t perfect, but we took our assignment so seriously, you would have thought this determined whether we would indeed graduate high school in five years. When we finished, caps on our markers, smeared colors all over our hands, we stood proudly before our maps of the world. And if you stood far enough away and squinted just a bit, you could see that we succeeded.