At Jacksonville High School, there are teachers that teach one subject. There are teachers that teach two subjects, maybe even three subjects; however, Mr. Rubin de Celis teaches ESL, Marketing, Business Law, Economic Survey, and Consumer Education. He is a teacher extraordinaire with five different subjects to teach in one day.
As a self-professed people person, it would seem almost automatic that Rubin de Celis would have gone straight to teaching. “I always wanted to become a teacher. But since I was a dutiful son, I was destined to be an accountant, as my father.” Mr. Rubin de Celis left accounting after he figured out that accounting had one major flaw. “Change was the reason I left. There was none. In teaching, every day is different: students are different, lessons are different. The only thing changing from day to day in accounting were the numbers.” Rubin de Celis decided to become a teacher when he was recommended while studying to become a minister at Garrett at Northwestern. This is where his teaching career would begin.
Since then, Rubin de Celis has been a happy member of the Jacksonville High School faculty for the past thirteen years. Recently, Mr. Rubin de Celis was awarded the “You Make a Difference Award” by another teacher. During the class I interviewed him in, one can see that the award was well-deserved. Mr. Rubin de Celis speaks fluent Spanish and English, and in his ESL classes, students rarely speak Spanish. Sure, Mr. Rubin de Celis would occasionally speak Spanish for difficult words but hearing students speak the secondary language in a secondary language class is extremely rare to say the least.
Mr. Rubin de Celis currently teaches five subjects, which is an overwhelming number of different classes for any teacher. With this many classes, Mr. Rubin de Celis is still able to put as much effort into every class he teaches, making him a teacher extraordinaire.