He has met Diego Maradona, interviewed David Bowie, received blessings from a Tibetan Lama, and stood within arm’s reach of Pope John Paul II – Mr. Laine’s life is a history lesson of its own. Despite such remarkable encounters, Mr. Laine has dedicated nearly three decades to teaching history, with eighteen of those years spent at Wakeland High School. Through his travels, Mr. Laine attempts to make learning history engaging and enjoyable for all his students.

For Mr. Laine, history is not just a subject. It is rather a lifelong passion that has been sparked by the nature shows he enjoyed watching as well as old books about battles which he had found in his grandparents’ house “One of the books was a book that had a bunch of stories about battles throughout history, depicting what was going on with the battles” he recalls, “for some reason, I grafted onto that book”.  This fascination with history has remained with Mr. Laine throughout his life, a passion he now shares with his students.

Although he rarely talks about it, Mr. Laine is an avid traveler who has explored four continents, missing only Antarctica and Australia. His extensive travels have given him unique stories that bring history to life in his classroom. “[T]he tomb was for the Roman general that beat Hannibal in the Punic wars” he recalls about his three years in Italy, “and we used to go in and drink wine on top of the tomb because nobody could see us.”

Beyond his adventures, Mr. Laine has crossed paths with remarkable figures, including interviewing six-time Grammy winner David Bowie while stationed in Italy “one of the people that I ended up interviewing, while I was [in Italy] was David Bowie”. He also recalls standing within arm’s reach of Pope John Paul II: “I’ve been as close to him as we are.” Additionally, he reflects on a special moment with the Dalai Lama: “We had an audience with the Tibetan Lama, and he blessed us”.

Despite his impressive adventures, the beloved traveler of Wakeland humbly admits there’s more to see “not as many as I’d like” he says of the countries he’s visited, “not near as many as some of my friends who’ve traveled quite extensively”. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem difficult to notice all the artifacts located in Mr. Laine’s room. From antique Russian dolls to Chinese revolutionary posters; all of that can be found in his class.

Having traveled around much of the world, Mr. Laine has adapted many different techniques of teaching. He believes that entertaining his students is very important. That is why the teacher focuses on making his classes as fun and interesting as possible while maintaining a comfortable student environment. Most of his students love the class, and the teacher’s impact on that can’t be underestimated. The historian’s enticing approach to delivering the information, as he often incorporates humor, hands-on activities, and his own stories to captivate his audience makes him loved by many.

…Learning history can be very important for everybody.

With all of his teaching experience, Mr. Laine has tons of stories, and more importantly, valuable life lessons, which are based on hundreds or even thousands of students. The teacher believes that learning history can be very important for everybody.

“If we applied some lessons from the past, we might better be able to deal with the stuff that’s going to happen in the future” he said. Although Mr. Laine admits that he is sometimes too harsh on his students, there is a valid reason for it.

The historian has spent 5 years of his life in the Navy, “I was super scared about that because you sign up for a 5-year enlistment,” he said, “I remember sitting in the hotel room before I shipped out and [basically] thinking, like, oh my god. What am I getting into?”

“Do the stuff you don’t want to do, in order to do the stuff that you want to do,”

Now, Mr. Laine is determined to pass down the knowledge acquired through his life, to make sure none of the students end up where he did, “and that’s the kind of thing where, when I harp on students about doing their work, it’s me thinking about, like, the dumb things that I did in the past” he recalls, “how that, led me to some unexpected places and some places I didn’t really want to end up going.”

That is why Mr. Laine is so concerned about education and truly wants to help his students.

“Believe me, the more work you put in now, the less work you’ll have to do later,” he explains his behavior. The historian wants his students to succeed so that they can go and explore the world, just like he did, “They don’t understand the potential for, like, all of the possibilities that could happen”.

Through his incredible life experiences, Mr. Laine cultivated wisdom that he now shares with his students. His motto: “Do the stuff you don’t want to do, in order to do the stuff that you want to do,” reflects his dedication to hard work.

Through storytelling and motivating students to dream big, Mr. Laine hopes to prepare his students for life’s challenges and inspire them to explore the world just like he did.