BBB School Culture:
Interview of Mr. Robert Rucker
Patricia Jenkins
National University
ABA 610
September 5, 2020
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CULTURE INTERVIEW
BBB Culture:
Interview of Mr. Robert Rucker
I interviewed Robert Rucker, the special education teacher at BBB High School, to learn
about BBB High school’s culture. I chose Mr. Rucker because he is a teacher at one of the
schools where I provide behavior intervention services, and because I believe that he is an active
participant in the school’s community. I was able to talk with him by telephone after school
hours, since we are both working remotely.
Mr. Rucker has been the special education teacher at
BBB High in BBB Unified School District for the past ten years. He grew up in Carson,
California, and he went to high school in that city.
Mr. Rucker received his bachelor’s degree in
English, with an emphasis in writing, from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
He is
currently attending California State University, Long Beach, working on his Masters in School
Counseling. He hopes to switch jobs and become a school counselor at BBB High within the
next year or two.
Interview
At the beginning of the interview, I explained briefly the purpose of the assignment. I
included some questions in the interview that I already knew the answer to, but decided that they
were worth keeping, in order to emphasize their importance and to hear what Mr. Rucker had to
say in their regard. A list of the questions asked can be seen in the Appendix. The first question
was about the primary demographic of the school. Mr. Rucker described that the demographic is
70% white, 20% Hispanic, and 10% other. Mr. Rucker went on to say, however, that this statistic
is slightly misleading, because it doesn’t touch on cultural demographic.
Of BBB’s white
population, a large majority is Armenian, with many of these students being immigrants, or their
parents being immigrants; with some still learning English. Next, we addressed the primary
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CULTURE INTERVIEW
concerns of the school. In October, there was an incident on campus which led to a shift in the
school’s planning and thinking.
I asked him to describe the incident, even though I already
knew, because I wanted to understand his perspective. What happened was that there was a fight-
turned-riot on campus. The fight happened during lunch and involved a huge number of students;
it was completely uncontrollable by the staff, resulting in the police coming in riot gear, and the
school being put on lockdown. Mr. Rucker mentioned that the fight had been brewing for a while
because the students were divided and tensions had been rising.
The breaking point came when
an Armenian student pushed a kid with special needs in front of the football team. There had
been tension between one group of Armenian students, many of whom were recent immigrants,
and the “popular group” on campus. This tension may have arisen due to cultural differences,
language barriers, formation of “cliques,” or other factors. The Armenian student claimed he
