Bethany Darwin, Staff Writer
January 6, 2012
Filed under Features, Top Stories
The home ec teacher stood up in front of the class and read the paper she had written on a student by the name of Ruben Mascarenas.
“In five to seven years after high school, I see Ruben in a dark cell with steel bars and a concrete wall around him,” the teacher said. “He will no longer be wearing what he is wearing now; instead he will be wearing an orange jump suit with a number to identify him. On the back you will see the words Santa Fe State Penitentiary.”
For Mascerenas, high school in New Mexico is where life ended and began again.
“In New Mexico, seventh grade was the last grade in elementary school, and that was when I started doing drugs,” Mascerenas said. “My first drug of choice was marijuana. I bough t it once, and after that, I grew it myself because it got too expensive.”
The friends that got him into drugs had the type of life that they continued to pull Mascerenas into. Doing drugs was just the beginning.
“All of my friends belonged to a gang, and I always had to be in charge,” Mascarenas said. “So one day a group of my friends found the current gang leader, right after he had taken some weird drugs that made him crazy, and we beat the crap out of him.
After he was gone, I was in control of the gang now.”
With Mascerenas as the new leader, he developed a reputation that followed him all the way to high school.
“Once I got to high school, I had a reputation that I could not get rid of,” Mascarenas said. “One thing that I learned from this was that your reputation follows you. In school they would put us into classes where all the teachers wanted to do was control you.”
Since Mascarenas had to be in charge, these classes could not control him and an outlet was needed.
“I learned to play the game very quickly,” Mascarenas said. “I would not bring attention to myself unless the teacher put me out there and started asking for it. I was kicked out of class repeatedly because I would not take the corporal punishment. The only people that could swat me were my parents.”
Calling Mascarenas a trouble child based on this would be an understatement. As he grew, so did his attitude.
“I threw a teacher in the trash can because he was trying to correct me and enforce our school’s one-way hallway policy,” Mascarenas said. “I locked a teacher out of her room and made her cry. I would use profanity with any teacher that would tell me to do something that I didn’t want to do or didn’t like. I was suspended quite a few times as well.”
Mascarenas truly was heading for the state penitentiary, until someone saw some good in him.
“My principal, I called him Chopper, took an interest in me and said that if I could get a job I could graduate high school,” Mascarenas said. “I lacked 11 or 12 credits and I could only earn three credits that year, which was my senior year.”
Mascarenas apparently had no plans to do anything, and nothing was in the future for him, except to take high school all over again.
“One day the principal called me into his office and asked me where I wanted to go to college,” Mascarenas said. “I told him that the only place my parents would pay for was South West Adventist University. So he sent in an application for me with a letter of recommendation.”
To get into college, Mascarenas first needed to graduate high school and that didn’t seem possible at the rate that he was going.
“I was surprised when the principal told me that I was going to graduate,” Mascarenas said. “I was even more surprised when I got my transcript. I not only had those credits that I needed, but I also had seven extra credits. I not only had extra credits but I also had classes that I had never taken, including two classes of driver’s education, which I passed with A’s.”
Now, with a high school diploma, college was now an option that could be considered.
“I received a letter of acceptance to S.W Adventist University for outstanding academic performance,” Mascarenas said. “Now that I was accepted I had to cut my hair because it was down to my waist and they never would have accepted that.”
Mascarenas was just getting over the shock that he had graduated high school, but now he had been accepted to a college. When this news was revealed he was no longer the only one that was shocked.
“When my parent’s found out, my dad said to me that he always wanted another one of his son’s to complete school,” Mascarenas recalls. “He then said to me that they would be more than willing to help me out in any way I needed. So after that, I went out and shaved my head.”
Mascarenas went through a lot in those years of his life. Now he tries to help out his students in any way he possibly can.
“Mr. Mac is funny, sarcastic, but he is also a friend who is there for you,” Manny Chavez said. “He helped me quit drinking simply by talking to me and motivating me. Not only did he help me with that problem, but he also helped me get my grades up. I went from a failing grade to a passing grade.”
Mascarenas, who now goes by Mr. Mac, has helped many others, other than Chavez.
He helped Marilyn Mendoza by giving her a plan to help her get her dad to stop smoking.
Mascarenas has not only helped with these problems but also with something simple as getting grades up.
“When I first got to Mr. Mac’s Spanish class, I thought that I didn’t need this and I would sleep in his class,” Lucas Hammond said. “I would get zeros on quizzes. My mom would get on me about my grades, but after the first six weeks, I didn’t care again.”
Mascarenas got onto Hammond about this, and changed everything for him.
“Mr. Mac started motivating me to do better, not just in his class, but in school in general,” Hammond said. “After that I started taking initiative in my work and started doing better, I went from a 20 in his class to a 97. He truly did take an interest in me.”
Mascarenas got onto Hammond about this, and changed everything for him.
“Mr. Mac started motivating me to do better, not just in his class, but in school in general,” Hammond said. “After that I started taking initiative in my work and started doing better, I went from a 20 in his class to a 97.He truly did take an interest in me.”
Mascarenas takes an interest in every single one of his students, and they can be confident that what is said stays confidential.
“If anything he is like an uncle to me because I can go talk to him whenever,” David Alvarado said.
Anyone can stop by anytime and talk to Mascarenas whenever they need to, for whatever reason.
“If I ever had a problem, I know for a fact that Mr. Mac would be there to talk to,”
Amber Reece said. “He is funny and awesome, but if you were to ask for help his door is always open. I have never seen it closed.”
Mascarenas doesn’t believe in closing his door.
“About 80 percent of the interruptions I have come from students who come by just to ask what they should do in a certain situation,” Mascarenas said. “They know that
I have been there, done that, and I have answers to their questions.”
He also realizes that things done in the past always have a way of coming back around.
“The things that I did when I was young, I am paying for now with my health,” Mascarenas said. “Thirteen years ago, I was diagnosed with Lymphoma cancer and the doctors said that I had a 20 percent chance of living. But today, I am proud to say that I am a survivor.”
Once someone has gone through a somewhat traumatic life, like Mascarenas, they would do anything to save others from that hard ship.
“Mr. Mac is a caring person who is strong and determined,” Reece said. “If he sees someone on the path that he was on he tries to steer them straight. I think just because he has gone through so much that is why he became a teacher. He is determined to help students no matter what their situation is.”
One man cannot help everyone, no matter how much they try to, it is not possible.
“I wish I could reach out and help everyone,” Mascarenas said. “I don’t exactly know what helps the ones that come to me, whether it is the granola bar, the apple, the email, or the cracker, I don’t know.”
Uncertainty is something that is a part of life, however there is something that Mascarenas knows for sure.
“To me, if I were to lock the door, I would be saying to my students that I don’t care about them and I don’t want to see them,” Mascarenas said. “Having my door unlocked is equal to a hug, and sometimes students just need to know that they have someone there for them. Morning, lunch or after school I am here for anything that they might need, and I am happy to help anyway that I can.”
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