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Ramon Rubalcaba
Ramon Rubalcaba has been teaching for 42 years at Ray School.
He currently works as a biology teacher for Ray, but before he even became a science teacher, he taught woodshop, and before that he was in the U.S. Army and National Guard.
One of his first jobs was a soldier in the Army when he was drafted back in Vietnam, but when the war ended, he opted to go back into the Army and work as a citizen soldier.
“I was in the Arizona National Guard for 15 years,” he said, “and then the Army Reserve for 10 years.”
Rubalcaba said someone read that he was an educator and so he went on to apply to trainer positions.
“I didn’t need to be taught how to teach for the Army, I just needed to teach the Army,” he said.
He said he didn’t teach full-time, he would just ask for missions and they would send him where they needed him. He said he taught all over the U.S. including places like Fort Gordon.
During his first 30 years as a teacher at Ray, he wasn’t even a science teacher.
“I was an industrial arts teacher,” he said. “I taught woodshop.”
He decided to pursue this path after going around the U.S. with the Army, because in 1974, his family heard that Ray was looking for an industrial arts/woodshop teacher. He decided to go back and get an industrial arts degree which he previously minored in. He also explained that his father was also a small homes contractor, so that helped him even more.
He also said that while he was in college, way before industrial arts, he was in pre-med.
Around early 2000, one of Ray’s biology teachers left during a semester, which gave him the chance to apply for the position which was a college prep class. Before applying to the biology position, he was also working in computer sciences.
He said when he was hired as the biology teacher, “the science thing kind of took off.”
After that semester of teaching biology and a couple years after, Rubalcaba was hired as a science teacher at the junior high school which he taught for 11 years.
Then, just two years ago, he was offered the position at the high school where he currently works.
During his 42 years in Ray, he said he has had other job offers. However, because of the location and the fact that the school system has been good to him, he stays at the school.
Rubalcaba said one of the high points of his 42 years have been when students come back after many years to thank him.
“I have had students who I had 30 years ago, come back and go out of their way to thank me for everything that I was able to impart on them,” he said.
As for any low points at Ray High School, Rubalcaba said he doesn’t really know if he had any low points.
“This school system has been really good to me and I’ve been able to give back to the school,” he said.
Rubalcaba said that during his time at Ray, he said that the attitude towards education has changed. He said that in the past, teachers were looked at as a positive force, and that today, “that’s not so much anymore.”
“Whenever I have to discipline a kid, it’s not the kid’s fault, it’s my fault now,” he said.
He said it’s not a lack of respect, but a change in the idea of respect.
“I’ve got government agencies telling me how to do my job, and they’ve never even walked into my classroom,” he said.
Rubalcaba also said that, during his past teaching, it was easier to before technology entered the schools. He said his teaching methods more resemble the teaching methods of the 70s.
“I make the kids get dirty. I make the kids use their think tank,” he said. “They can’t use Google or Yahoo. I teach science like I taught shop; you’ve got to engineer through the problem. They’ve got to learn the process.”
He says he sees technology as more of a toy during class time. If a student is bored, some teachers just say play on your device, he said.
Rubalcaba said that even from the first day of teaching, he had a plan. He said if he could tell his past self-anything, he wouldn’t. He said he was prepared for the job thanks to his time in the Army and that that helped the interactions with his students.
“I’ve been successful since day one,” he said. “Ever since day one in woodshop, with the first kid, I already had a plan. When the kid walked past me, I had my hand out and he walked past it, I said ‘No, you come back here. I am the teacher. Shake my hand. We’re going to do this every day.’”
“I would do it all the same,” he added.
He said on the first day of class, he tells all his students, “this will be your favorite class of the day, bar none.”
Rubalcaba contributes his want of becoming a teacher to his freshmen year science teacher and especially his sophomore biology teacher.
“It wasn’t until I had a dynamic biology teacher my sophomore year that just blew the doors off my education,” he said. “And that’s when I got turned on to biology.”
He was retained in first grade due to him knowing hardly any English as a Mexican-American kid, but he attributes that retention to meeting the teacher that helped him become a teacher.
Rubalcaba would like to thank Ray school and the community.
“In my 42nd year, I would just like to thank the community and the school district for accepting me and my family, to be part of the community and part of the school,” he said.
Article by Joshua Delauder
There are news or informational items frequently written by staff or submitted to the Copper Basin News, San Manuel Miner, Superior Sun, Pinal Nugget or Oracle Towne Crier for inclusion in our print or digital products. These items are not credited with an author.
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