December 14, 2024 • 45 mins
Falling for Learning Episode 77 focuses on the journey into education for Restorative Justice Teacher, James Riley. Check out his YouTube Channels - https://www.youtube.com/c/mrrileysworld and https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWeekinPaliFootball.
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Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
Hello. Welcome to the Falling for Learning Podcast. I
(00:04):
am TD Flenaugh. This is episode77. Today we have a special
guest. His name is James Riley,and he is a career educator, and
he serves as a restorativejustice educator, and he's going
to get into details about whatthat means, and about
consequences and punishments andall that for schools and what
(00:25):
you may think about doing athome if you are a homeschool
parent, let's get into it.
Hi. Thank you so much forjoining the Falling for Learning
Podcast. We have this podcast tohelp parents and caregivers with
having the resources, strategiesand tools needed to make sure
that their children are on trackfor learning and to stay on
(00:47):
track for success.
Hi, how are you doing? Mr.
Riley,I'm doing great. How are you
good? So everyone, this is JamesRiley, you're, we're, we work
together right now, and we'regoing to talk about, you know,
his role in schools, and howthat fits into like,
(01:10):
consequences, punishments andall that. So how is your
holidays, or your holidays goingso far?
Well, seeing that, we're acouple of hours into it, you
know, you know, Yesterday wasFriday. The break is today. So
today was, you know, I've beenup since 630 this morning, on
(01:32):
the go, non stop, and I stillhave one more thing to do before
the night is all done. So if Ihad to put it all in one word
today, the first day of break,it has been very busy but very
gratifying.
Alright,very busy but very gratifying.
Okay, so we like to talk aboutall kinds of things on this
(01:57):
podcast that are related toeducation, helping kids to fall
in love with learning, helpingguiding parents in to strategies
and tips on how to make thathappen before we get into that,
we also like to talk about,like, what made you fall in love
with learning as a child?
(02:18):
You know, that's a goodquestion.
Um, so falling in love withlearning as a child,
I really don't know what made mefall in love. I just did what
was normal as anyyou know, childhood or child age
person would do, just attendschool, you know, try to get the
(02:39):
a on the test. You know, Iwasn't that successful all the
time, but I did, you know, trymy best. I listened to my
teachers, follow theinstructions. I was one of those
dudes who was just, you know,kind of, you know, walking by
the line and just doing what Iwas supposed to do, you know,
because I know that mom in thefamily wanted me to do well, and
(03:01):
so I gave it my all. And itreally wasn't until my college
days that I really developed afondness for learning. And you
know, so I have to say, itdidn't necessarily begin in my
childhood, but somewhere, youknow, around young adult ish, I
guess was when I kind of pickedup and really begin to
(03:24):
understand what learning coulddo for someone. So, yeah, I
would have to say it didn'tbegin as a childhood, in my
childhood, but as a young adult.
So you're starting with, you'rebasically saying you started
with just compliance, doing whatyou were told to do, following
(03:47):
the rules, and then later on, itkind of caught on for you. So
what were some kind ofactivities and things like that
that you were involved in?
Because one thing is, youweren't turned off from
learning. I guess you were stillinvolved, right? So what are
some things that you wereinvolved in as a kid that led to
your career that you have now,or your career in education
overall? Absolutely. So when Iyou know, just, just about, you
(04:10):
know, a lot of young boys havedreams of being a professional
athlete. So for me, it wasn't,you know, oh, I want to be a
cop, or I want to be a firemanor police officer or lawyer, you
know, I was like, hey, I want togo to the I want to go to the
NBA, right? But I didn't havethe skills, right? So, middle
school, you know, I playedbasketball, but I wasn't like,
(04:32):
the top dude, right? And theneven in high school, you know, I
went to high school out there inthe valley. Shout out to El
Camino Real in the valley.
So I went there. And, you know,I love basketball as a kid, and
so when I matriculated to highschool, kind of fell in love
with track and, you know, so Ifound myself in a lot of
(04:54):
extracurricular activitieswhere, you know, activities, or,
you know, moving around was, waskind of.
Necessary for me. So just,you know, just being involved in
kind of learning about sportsand being a sports person, and
really trying to find my ways,like, Okay, well, I didn't make
the varsity team. So what elsecould I do to kind of help, you
know, facilitate what I'm goingto do later on in life. So for
(05:17):
me, you know, trying to developsome of those skills. It's like,
okay, you're not always going todo what you want to do, but you
need to pick up something. Youneed you need to be good at
something. So one of my favoriteactivities as a child was
photography, and so I rememberbeing in sixth grade, fifth or
sixth grade, using, I don'tknow, I'm dating myself right
(05:39):
here, I'm gonna date myself.
Okay, dateyourself. So, yeah. So my
grandmother, you know, she wasfrom the south, South Carolina,
and she would always go to,like, what they would call them,
rummage sales, or we refer tothem as yard sales, right? You
know, the the kind of academicword for Roman sale, right? So
(06:01):
we would go to yard sales and orshe would, and then she found a
camera for me. So it was an oldcamera. It was a 120 film kind
of camera.
So you remember 120 now, this isokay, see, you don't even
remember that.
So, like I said, I'm kind ofdating myself, but eventually,
(06:22):
you know, I kind of use thatcamera. And then my my
grandfather, on my father'sside, he kind of, no, actually,
was my uncle. My uncle had aCanon camera, and I kind of
picked it up and was using itwhen I was hanging out with him.
And so eventually, mygrandfather bought me my first
35 millimeter camera. It was aCanon AE one, which was a top of
(06:43):
the line camera. And so I kindof developed the skill of
photography as well. So I knewif I didn't become a basketball
player, at least, I can dosomething in the trade centered
around photography. So that'skind of where I was. And I kind
of carried that love ofphotography throughout high
school. You know, I didn't. Iwasn't on the yearbook staff
(07:06):
because most of the time I wasparticipating in a lot of the
sporting activities at theschool, either fall would be
basketball, spring would betrack. So I didn't, I wasn't a
part of a yearbook, but I didtake several courses from the my
teacher, Miss Weaver, CarolynWeaver at and I still remember
(07:27):
her today.
She had a wonderful impact on mein terms of, you know, using
photography and, you know, kindof understanding photography and
taking it to another level. Soshout out to miss Weaver. And
so, yeah, so that's kind of whatI learned. And then from there,
I wanted to be a photojournalist.
So, you know you talk aboutcoming out of high school and
(07:50):
figuring out what I wanted todo. Well,
the most important thing thatseniors do when they graduate
high school is they go tocollege. Well, for me, you know,
my mom, she didn't necessarilygo to college. My dad, she did
attend trade school, but my dad,he went straight into the Air
Force. So, you know, for them,and then for a lot of
(08:12):
you know, my my grandparents, Iwas the first kid to kind of go
to college. So for me, was a bigthing. And so I figured, okay,
you know, I couldn't. I didn'tgo to like Michigan State or
UCLA. I just went down thestreet. I went to El Camino
College over in torts, because Iwas not ready. All right, I
wasn't ready. Didn't didn'tunderstand, didn't really have
(08:33):
anyone to kind of tutor me alongthe process in terms of taking
tests. And, you know, it wasjust okay, let's graduate high
school and then figure outwhat's next. So for me,
now, I don't know if we havingsome technical difficulties, but
(08:54):
I can't hear you.
No, I can read your lips, thoughI accidentally muted myself. I'm
really, oh okay. There you go.
Okay. There you go. Oh no, thereyou go. Thanks for letting me
know. Yes, but you know, how didyou know you weren't ready?
Um, you know, I just, I mean, alot of the kids, because I went
(09:18):
to a, you know, PWI,predominantly white, you know,
high school out in the valley, alot of those kids, you know,
they had parents who kind ofknew that knew how to get on
board their kids into college,right? So for me, it was, you
know, I didn't have thatcoaching. Yeah, I had a village.
But the village was not like,okay, let's what's next for you,
(09:39):
James, you know, or they calledme Jimmy, Jimmy. What's next for
you? I didn't have a plan. So mygoal was to go to El Camino
College, go to communitycollege, and kind of figure it
out. But I did know that Iwanted to have something to do
in photojournalism, so startedtaking classes there. I ran
track there.
(10:00):
My first year,but then I got a job.
Part that you brought up becauseyou, you're saying you didn't
have, like, really good skillsto become, like
a professional athlete, but youeven community college, you were
able to still run track, whichwas, I'm sure, helpful in
keeping you involved with thecollege life? Yeah, absolutely.
(10:24):
I mean, because you still haveto learn discipline, there's a
lot of things that you canlearn, you know, by being on a
sports team, you know,discipline, you know, being on
time when you're asked to, youknow, just developing a good
work ethic, and so, you know,you kind of get those things in
a different manner than saying,you know, going to, you know,
2000 miles away, or, you know,or just across town, if we're
(10:46):
going to across town university,you know, because you got to
figure out. You got to wakeyourself up. You got, you know,
you're responsible for yourself.
Not to say that. I wasn'tresponsible, but I just didn't
have anyone who, who kind of hadme going down the right path,
right? I didn't take an A C TD,didn't take an S, A, T had no
clue what it was. And I, youknow, I was so naive, I didn't
even ask. It was like, Whaty'all taking a who? Oh, okay,
(11:08):
all right,peace, do your thing, you know,
I, I had no clue.
Which is why? Yeah, which iswhy, you know, I figured the
community college will be agreat way for me to kind of, you
know, have a good understanding,develop some skills, and then,
you know, just kind of use that.
And you know,that's what I did. So eventually
(11:29):
I got the AA degree byattending, you know, El Camino
College, matriculated over toLong Beach State, you know,
again, I'm working, so I'mputting myself through school at
this point. You know, mom is notpaying for me. Mom has moved
across country taking care ofher, of her parents with
Alzheimer's. So, you know, itwas incumbent on upon me to, you
(11:50):
know, figure it out. I couldn'tcall Hey mom. Can you Hey mom?
Nah, mom.
She, taking care of, you know,elderly parents of her so, you
know, 3000 miles across the way.
So I had to figure it out, and Idid, but it took some time, but
I eventually, you know, it wasthrough trial and error. Okay,
(12:11):
so you said it took you sometime. So how long were you in
the community college? So let'ssee. I graduated in 86 from high
school, and I think I finallygraduated from El Cole in 91 I
want to say, because, like Isaid, I was putting myself
through college, and so I wasworking. I got a job with the
(12:33):
county, working at a localhospital. And so, you know,
working, going to school,sometimes, being on academic
probation,you know, it's like, okay, bro,
you got to get this thingtogether, right? Okay, so we
figured it out, and so we we wewalked, we celebrated. Okay,
what's next, right? So we didthe thing in Long Beach. Got
(12:57):
into Long Beach, they had awonderful photojournalism
program. And the only thingabout it is you have to be a
part of the campus life toreally be a participant in
photojournalism. Okay. Well, Mr.
Kelly, the professor there, whowas, you know, who was known,
(13:19):
world renowned photographer,photojournalist, you know, I
again, because I'm puttingmyself through school. I didn't
have the time, you know, this islike a regular nine to five
where I couldn't just, like,Alright, I'm not coming in
today,you know. So, so again, I had to
figure out what, what was nextfor me. And so, you, you talked
about education. I figured, youknow, I could take some black
(13:42):
studies courses, kind of get intune to who I am, and, you know,
what kind of impact I can makein my community. And through
that, I figured, okay, aftergraduating, maybe, because I had
such wonderful teachers in theBlack Studies Department, maybe
I can be a strong AfricanAmerican male teacher and some
of our, you know, in the schoolsystem. And so I kind of
matriculated, you know, Ishifted because I couldn't do
(14:04):
funnel journalism the way Iwanted to.
And so I matriculated, and justthought about being a teacher.
And so went back to school afterI graduated at Long Beach in 98
class of 98 and, you know,started the path to become a
teacher, which, again, you know,going back to your very first
(14:24):
question, when did you become,you know, a learner. You know,
for me, young adult, definitely.
And then, you know, moved on todeveloping a passion for
teaching kids, especially kidsin our community. Okay, so
that's a long story, but that'sthat's my story. All right, so
we're going to take a quickbreak
(14:46):
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Okay, all right, so we're back.
We were hearing about, you know,your journey to become an
(15:52):
educator, and you now are takingus to the part where you are an
educator. Tell us how longyou've been teaching and what
your current role isso I have been teaching since
1998 so what's that about? 24years? 25 years, maybe. 26
almost. Okay. See, there you go.
(16:18):
26 I know it's somewhere overthere. I lose track 26 years.
So primarily working in thesouth LA area, start out as and
maybe, maybe you can identifywith this. Or maybe some of your
listeners can, especially ifthey're teachers, they can
identify with the emergencypermits or emergency credential
(16:40):
or, you know, so I did thatseries of tests you gotta, you
gotta pass within five years.
So, because I was putting myselfthrough school by this time, I
was newly married. I was marriedin 97 started working in 98 the
summer of 98 at one of thoseschools where you had year round
schools, right? You rememberyear round schools? So I started
(17:01):
there, year round and, you know,just, just going through, trying
to understand what you know ateacher looks like, you know,
should be teaching andeverything. So it was definitely
different. But I liked it. Ithink I made an impact on the
studentswho sat in my class again. Back
(17:22):
then, I had about anywhere from28 to 32 kids in the classroom.
I primarily taught fourth myfirst year I taught fourth
grade, okay,and the second year I taught
fifth grade. And I think for thefollowing four years, I think I
talked,or you kind of, it kind of went
(17:45):
back and forth, depending on,you know, the matrix. If you
know what the matrix is, that'sthe time when, in this in the
spring, teaching with onesecond, because I want to make
sure people have context. Yes,okay, go ahead. During the time
that he's referring to, therewas like a teacher shortage,
where there's often a teachershortage, but always the teacher
shortage was so bad when Mr.
(18:10):
Riley began that basically, aslong as you had a bachelor's
degree, you could become ateacher. And that's what he
means by emergency credentials.
So they let him teach, as longas he did a couple of things,
just a few things, to beeligible to be emergency
credential. Basically, you werealso saying that you're going to
work towards getting yourcredential during that time. So
so he was teaching without anyexperience as a teacher, just a
(18:34):
desire, and there was absolutelyyes. So that's where he was
coming in. And then withelementaries, if you're not
sure, clear about that, inelementary basically everyone
has the same credential, right?
So kindergarten through fifthgrade teachers, you could get
pushed, you know, matrix, oraccording to seniority, you
(18:56):
could get pushed from one gradelevel to the next, anywhere from
kindergarten to fifth grade. Ofcourse, there's some variations
that they're special day classteachers. But if you're a K
through five regular teacher,you can be moved anywhere
between kindergarten throughfifth grade. And so everyone's
kind of like, in a way,competing. They all have the
same credentials. Sojust some background. Go ahead.
(19:17):
Well said,well said, so. So imagine this.
You're working, you know, 730 tothree, and then I'm heading back
out to Long Beach State. I'mheading back out because they
have a teacher program. So withthe emergency credential, they
say, Hey, you know what? You canwork. Long as you're working
(19:39):
towards your credential, you gotfive years. You got five years
to get your credentials. So backto Long Beach, you know, I think
their program was maybe two anda half years, or just whenever
you complete it, as long as youcan complete it. Because
sometimes life does happen, and,you know, things get in the way.
But.
(20:00):
Luckily for me, I had anotherfriend, my wife's best friend,
she, she, you know, basically wewent out there at the same time.
So we would roll out to LongBeach. Sometimes I drive,
sometimes she would drive. Weroll in the same classes. And we
actually, you know, got ourteaching credential together. So
that was cool.
(20:21):
So yeah, mostly upper grade. Andthen after the five years,
I moved over to an independentCharter School, okay, and so,
which was, like the cuttingedge. So here in LA, there was a
program where there is, there'sa program called Academic, mass
academic English Masteryprogram, or commonly known as
(20:43):
amp.
So a lot of, the lot of a few ofthe
basically, there was a charterschool centered around using the
pedagogy that amp used, or wasusing, trying to teach in the
different schools. Well, some ofthe administrators of this
charter school kind of came outof that office at LA USD put a
(21:05):
charter together. And so webegin, you know, I was one of
the founding teachers of theculture and culture and language
academy for success, or wecalled it short class, C, L, A,
S, culture, language, cultureand language academy for
success. So work. Worked overthere for a while, worked as the
(21:27):
fourth grade teacher, because Ilove technology. They needed a
technology person. Worked intechnology for a number of
years, and then afterwards islike, you know what? This is
great.
Maybe I need to go back to thedistrict, and so went back to
the district. Oh, no, I'm sorry.
Let me back up. Me Back up.
(21:49):
During that same time, I wasalso working on my master's
degree in educationaltechnology, because this class,
this school, was developedbasically on Apple's one to one
device to student ratio. So eachstudent had their own laptop.
Now this is before you know.
This is this is way ahead ofthis time. So each kid had their
(22:11):
own laptop, their own laptop.
Each teacher in the classroomhad their own Promethean board.
Each teacher had their ownprojector. Each teacher had
their own, you know, a bundle ofcamera and digital tools that
they can use in the classroom.
Wow. So, so, yeah, so it was2000 this was 2002 1003
(22:39):
okay, yes. So I so I left LAUSD,
yes, yes. Cutting Edge went overto class. Was a founding
teacher. Worked there for anumber of years, and then
ultimately came back to thedistrict.
And one of the reasons I workedon my master's degree was
because they were doing somecutting edge stuff as it relates
(23:02):
to technology. So we know, forinstance, you know, one of the
big things back then was likebeing able to use Power School
to record attendance. Right now,we do it like it's we use mices
right before the before thepaper pencil. So this is a
little bit before that, yeah. Sothat was very, yeah, very so it
(23:25):
was very interesting. And sogoing through all these
different pathways and avenues,you know, with teaching students
from fourth or fifth grade, youknow, beginning my teaching
careerin LA USD, teaching at class,
being a founding teacher, beinga technology advocate, and then,
you know, just, you know,matriculating back over to the
(23:47):
district. You know, I foundmyself in different spaces,
different areas. I mean, I'vetaught everything from kinder to
eighth grade, because class wentup to eighth grade eventually.
So it did start out as a k5 andthen eventually expanded to
middle school.
So I've, I've taughtyou know, everything from kinder
(24:08):
to eighth, either self containedclassroom or as a technology
advocate, or what they called usat a class student advocate,
which is basically a differentname for just a teacher, right?
Um, so we do some cutting edgestuff. So I've been a lot of
places. I've done some long termsub assignments because, you
(24:32):
know, I could, I could tell you,you know, 2009 what happened?
There's a lot of cut out, a lotof layoffs and everything, yes,
and so I was victim of thelayoff because I was newly back
to the district, and so I had toagain, Mr. Riley, had to figure
it out. But, but through allthat, I still did not leave my
(24:54):
passion for learning. And so Ithink that's kind of what your
the focus of your podcast is.
And then.
Thinking about, like, how wecould support parents. And one
aspect of your current job isyour what's your official title
right now? So, yeah, so before,before I talk about the
restorative justice teacher forthe Now, going back to 2009
(25:18):
so a couple years after that,one of the teachers
was unable to fulfill her, herher job duties at a school, so I
had a long term sub assignmentin this class. And then one of
the coaches like, hey, maybe youshould be you're pretty good,
you're pretty patient with theselittle kids. And now mind you,
(25:40):
these were and I never hadexperience with working with
special education students whoare preschool. So they were
between the ages of three andfive. They were on the autism
spectrum. So for me, very firsttime, it was about seven kids, I
had a couple of adults in theclassroom. And the good thing
about this class is they wenthome at 1130 right? So, or 1130
(26:05):
12, but they weren't there fullday, right? So, you know, the
coach came in. Hey, you shouldbe good for this. Okay, great.
So then I had to go and get aspecial education degree for
early childhood specialeducation, so for the for the
previous 10 years, that's what Iwas doing, working in a
(26:25):
preschool comprehensiveclassroom with students with
autism between the ages of threeand five. So even though I was
working at our current school, Ifound myself disconnected a
little bit, because a lot of thethings that I did in my
classroom, alot of the things we would do in
staff meetings and, you know, itjust or professional
developments, it just didn'tapply to me. Because, you know,
(26:46):
I'm three to five, you know,ages three to five on autism
spectrum, preschool kids, right?
So your current role now, I gotyou and a restorative justice
teacher, absolutely and how,what kind of ideas or strategies
can you talk to like? Well,first of all, tell us what it is
(27:08):
yes to talk about how peoplecould apply that, either with
what they do as at home withtheir kids, or as they are just
guiding their kids as well andabsolutely so this year we had a
vacancy at our school, and, youknow, they closed my classroom
down. So the Classroom programwhere I taught, it doesn't exist
(27:31):
anymore at my school site. Sofor me, yeah. So for me, I had
to figure out either apply toanother, you know, school, go to
another school or because, ifthis position is available, why
don't I see if I can, you know,fulfill it. So interview with
the principal. He was like, Hey,you got it. I want you. I'm
(27:52):
like, Cool. I want to stay hereas well. So now I'm currently
serving as the restorative, theBSAP restorative justice teacher
at my school site, and I'll go,go ahead and provide context for
you. BSAP stands for the BlackStudent Achievement Plan, where,
within, I think, our lastcontract renewal with the
(28:16):
district, there was clausewritten in for teachers, or for
schools or for the schooldistrict to supply BSAP funded
personnel at each of ourschools. So the BSAP team in my
school, we have myself arestorative justice teacher.
There's a PSW psychiatric socialworker for students, we have a
(28:40):
PSA who really focuses in onattendance. We have a parent
rep, and then we have a schoolclimate advocate, which kind of,
they kind of do fun things withthe students, you know, during
your recess and lunch, and kindof makes it, you know, those
kind of times a little bit moreengaging, right? Give them
opportunities for a little bitmore
(29:04):
activity together, closeness,and so that's kind of, you know,
I'm part of that BSAP team.
So being a BSAP RJ teacher, oneof the things, and I'm, I'm
green to this position, I amvery new RJ, meaning restorative
justice. Yes, restorativejustice.
Thank you. Restorative justice.
So basically it is if you havesomeone who has caused harm to
(29:27):
somebody, maybe an argument, orsometimes, you know, might be a
physical altercation orsomething. And these occur at
all levels, elementary, middleand high school. So you should
have these BSAP programsthroughout several schools. Not
all schools have the BSAPprogram. There's a certain
(29:48):
designation that schools have tofall under in order to get BSAP
funding. Butbeing a restorative justice
teacher, we we try to do.
Help the kids, help the studentsunderstand there's other ways of
dealing with the situationbesides just fighting, arguing,
(30:09):
you know, calling each othernames. And so one of the things
that I do, which is part of thepositive behavior intervention
and support team,one of the things that I do is I
hold community circles in myclassroom now. A community
circle is just when we a timewhere classes can come together
and we can talk about differentissues. So we talked this past
(30:30):
week, we talked about ourculture, holidays, things that
we do with our families now, andthose are good things, right?
But the restorative justicepiece comes in where.
So it's kind of difficult for mejust to talk to students if I
(30:51):
don't know them,but by by building community,
having conversations about someof the things that they like to
engage in outside of school orin school. It makes it a little
bit more easier for me to talkto students, if they you know,
if they're referred to me, or ifI observe something, or if a
teacher says, yeah, when theyget in trouble, it makes it much
(31:12):
easier for me to kind of talkand de escalate the situation.
And so I love the communitycircles, because that's kind of
like the entry way, the gatewayfor me to understand who the
children are who come into mycommunity circle classroom,
right? And then, so hold on. Soyou're saying when they get in
trouble, they can come to you,but also you help build
(31:34):
community. So what about like adean, or like going to the
principal's office when they getin trouble. So, yeah,
absolutely, that's still inplace. So not every thing that
students do in the classroom,you know, they don't have to be
automatically sent to theprincipal, right? So we're
talking about those there'sthere's tears, there's levels to
(31:56):
behaviors in our schools. Sothere's tier one, tier two, tier
three. Tier three is thehighest. Tier one is the lowest.
So let's just see you tier one,tier two, tier three. I got you
all of them are. So usually, ifwe're teetering around high tier
one or tier two, right now, ifwe just to give context again,
if it's all, you know, battlefist fight that's gonna go all
(32:20):
the way. That's a tier threekind of situation. So, you know,
principal might just hop intothat right now, I might do some
have a restorative practicewhere we can kind of talk about
it afterwards. But from the getgo, it's gonna go to the
principal, if the principal canhandle it, great. If he can't
handle it. Or, you know, maybethere's a referral that I need
(32:41):
to kind of talk and, you know,help the students work their way
through it. Then that's where Icome in. But we're talking
about, you know, maybe studentsarguing. So case in point, I'll
give you, I'll give you anexample. This was a tier three
behavior. However, it's probablythe classic example from this
semester, I was asked to see twostudents by a teacher. She's
(33:04):
like, hey, these students arenot kind of getting along. And
so maybe later on that day, theyweren't getting along so well
that they were pinching andstabbing each other with a
pencil.
Fifth grade each other with apencil. Oh, no, yes. Now,
instead of using their words,saying, Hey, can you not stab
(33:25):
me, or hey, can you not pinchme, they were continuously doing
that and not even telling theteacher what was going on.
So so one of the coordinatorsgot wind of it, and, you know,
they asked if I can handle it?
And I said, Sure. Or maybe,maybe she was handling it. And
then, you know, she's like, Hey,Mr. Riley, can you handle I was
(33:47):
like, Sure. So I jumped in andwe kind of talked about it, and
kind of figured it out. Now,parents were still called, not
by me, but because of, you know,the stabbing and the pinching
there was, you know, there aresome, you know, some things,
some paperwork, some additionalpaperwork that I don't have to
fill out. Okay, right? So youbasically are helping kids to
reallytalk through their emotions,
(34:11):
negative, absolutely, and that'swhat happened. And resolve
conflict in a way, yes,okay, so this is type of, wait,
this is part of a substitutefor, like, when students,
instead of, like, suspendingstudents, or how, absolutely
into it, okay, absolutely, yes,yeah. It's, it's an alternative.
(34:32):
Because, you know, years ago, wewould just say, Okay, you're
gone for two days, or you'regoing for three days. Well, I
mean, you know, going back tothat situation, you know now,
those two students, just aboutevery time I see them, they're
almost together, they'refriends, they're happy, they're
smiling. And I think it had alot to do with, you know, the
restorative practice that wekind of put in place, having the
(34:54):
girls talk to each other aboutwhat they experienced, and just.
Instead of just, you know,coping with it and dealing with
it. Hey, why don't you expressto the other person How are you
feeling and how it makes themfeel? And let's talk about this
thing, instead of continuously,you know, harming each other,
we're trying to restore so thatwe can, you know, get along and
(35:17):
be in a safe place. Becauseschools should be the safest
place that students can come to.
So that's kind of what I do.
You know, if it's a tier threewhere, you know, folks are
kicking, screaming, punching,you know, it might be all the
way it it might escalate to theprincipal. But if it's something
where I can intervene and I cantalk and, you know, have a
(35:38):
situation where we can share,you know, boys, girls can share,
then that's fine as well. Sothat's kind of part of what I
do,being a BSAP restorative justice
teacher at my school site.
Okay? And so as you're thinkingabout your role, like, what, how
did, how can parents, like,follow up and use these types of
(36:01):
practices at home with theirkids, because obviously at home,
they're not suspending theirkids, you know. So what are some
elements from what you do thatcan be used at home to help kids
in their development, absolutelywith each other. So one of the
things that I do within mycommunity building circles is, I
have students breathe and notjust and so the breathing and
(36:24):
I'm I always tell them,you know, as we're going through
my community circles, I alwaystell them, if you feel anxious
or you feel bothered or, youknow, frustrated or angry,
Take some time to breathe.
You know, try to de escalate thesituation yourself. Instead of
(36:45):
just, you know, just going allin, make sure you can calm
yourself down, right? And then,if you can calm yourself down,
then maybe some of the negativebehaviors that might come up,
you know, let's say siblings arehitting each other, right? You
know. And even parents canpractice this, you know, they
(37:05):
can practice this with theirkids, you know, let's, let's
take some time to breathe. Calmdown, you know. You know, twins
might be, you know, busy hittingand kicking each other, and they
might be trying to tell theirmom or dad or grandma what's
going on? Like, hold on. We needto just breathe,
you know, we need to calm down,and we need to get all sides of
(37:28):
the story, you know. Okay,Johnny, tell me what happened?
Is this? What happened? Billy,okay, now, you know what? What
could have been done to not bein this situation? You know,
asking those kind of restoringquestions. Or instead of hey,
you better you know how, youknow how black parents can be.
Or, you know, I mean, you knowhow parents can be, but you know
(37:49):
how black parents can be, Well,you better sense yourself. You
know, we'll, we'll just, we'llget right into it. But no,
that's an opportunity forparents as well to kind of
practice some patience,kind of breathe, you know,
figure it out. And even if youhave to separate, you know, kids
who are acting crazy off thewall, separate them, you know,
(38:10):
instruct them to kind of calmdown, do some breathing. There's
tons of breathing methods tokind of calm you down, de
stress, de escalate. And thenonce the de escalation has
happened, maybe we can have arestorative conversation to kind
of help build each other up.
(38:32):
Instead of just saying, Boy, youbetter go to that corner before
I, you know, before I get mythere's some ways to do it and
deal with it a more productiveway. And then absolutely, it
sounds like some practice forhealing, or like trying to mend
the relationship afterward. Yes,yes, because you want to, you
want to make sure that some kindof mending is taking place. Now,
(38:53):
you know, I've had a situationagain where, you know,
two girls were in the PS theschool based, PSA, she was in
there were talking to two girls,and they were, you know, going
back and forth. And, you know,off the bat, the girls, like, I
don't want to be her friend.
Sorry, hold on, what is a PSA?
(39:14):
Ah, a PSA is justpupil service. I'm not too sure
what the A is. I want to sayattended. So basically, they
take care. They help take careand monitor attendance at
schools. Okay, so we were therebecause, you know, I'm talking
to two girls. I want to makesure I have somebody else in the
room with me. And actually, she,I think she, you know, brought
(39:36):
the two girls into me so wecould kind of deal with the
situation together. So at thebeginning of the conversation,
one girl was like, huh, I don'twant to be your friend.
Butby de escalating, talking about
what happened, the needle hadmoved near the end of our
conversation to say, you know,she said, I don't I.
(40:00):
Don't mind being her friend.
Okay, you know, so you kind oftake what you can get. And so
going from I don't want to beyour friend to I don't mind, I
think that's a win situation,yeah, for sure. Because So
again, just talking, yes, theydo absolutely. And like you
said, if they get suspended,that doesn't mean that when we
come back to school, that we'renot still going to have more
(40:22):
conflicts becausewe just got in trouble. But that
didn't solve what happenedbetween it did absolutely. I
mean this, the problem is stillthere, and when was the time
that they had an opportunity totalk to one another if they're
suspended? Yeah, so suspensionshouldn't be the first thing
that we jump to we're trying torepair, because ultimately,
(40:43):
they're going to have to seeeach other, especially if
they're in the same classroom,you know, they're going to have
to get along and figure it out.
And so part of my job is to helpthem come to an understanding
where something happened. Youknow, let's acknowledge what
happened. How does each of thepeople parties feel about it,
and what can we do? What can weput in place to make sure that
(41:06):
it doesn't happen again?
We're going to end here. Wereally appreciate you coming and
talking to us about all thethings you know, like your
journey through education andobviously, parents and
caregivers can take some tipsfrom that. Sometimes kids aren't
ready to go to community collegeright away, not community
(41:29):
college, but to the four yearuniversity. That doesn't mean
that they're not going to get togetting that four year degree
later on and having a reallywonderful career, but
also like things that can bedone ahead of time to help them
think about sat, prompt them forcertain things, and then just
how the career unfolds indifferent ways. Right? You want
(41:52):
to be a athlete, you have tofigure out, like, Okay, I don't
have the skills. What can I dothat's close to it, and then
ending upgoing into teaching, because,
you know, you had an alternativepath to from journalism through
your working and family man youknow, got married and all of
that. So it was great to hearfrom you and to share your
(42:14):
information.
Can you tell us about what youhave going on because you have
like a show as well, right? Andwhere can people watch your show
and learn more about you and theservices you offer? Absolutely
well. First of all, first ofall, just want to say thank you
for allowing me to come on andrant and kind of share my story,
(42:37):
my unconventional story. I'm nottoo sure if I met the mark in
terms of what you wanted, buthopefully you're listening. Your
listeners and viewers will findsome value in what we discussed
today. Kind of listen, listeningto me and sharing my story. So I
am a a, you know,I'm a baby YouTuber, I guess. So
I, you know, people can findbaby YouTube
(43:02):
but no, I have, I have a coupleof channels you want go for it,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Only reason Isay, you know, because, again,
family time, I have to fit inwhere I can get in. And so,
you know, I have a couple ofdifferent ways that I'm, I'm on
YouTube. And so one of the waysI that I my, my release, my, my
(43:23):
give back to the community is Iam a football High School
commentator for my sons. Allthree of my sons, they attended
a charter school out here, andthey play football. And so every
Friday night, well, Footballseason is over for high school.
You can find me atThis Week in Pali football on
YouTube, and you can go check meout and have interviews with
(43:44):
some of my son's formercolleagues and current players
on the football team. Wait,what's your name? Of your
podcast? I mean, of your show,what's the name? Yes, YouTube
channel this absolutely. ThisWeek in pally football is one
this week in pally. This week inpally, football is one, but my
main channel, if you type in onYouTube, Mr. Riley's world, you
(44:07):
will see a plethora of stuff.
You'll see a plethora of things.
You'll see me reading stories.
You'll see me talking about myfamilies. You'll see me unboxing
some stuff, especially duringCOVID, which is when I had a lot
of time to upload a lot ofvideos. And so, you know, you
(44:30):
know, I love technology, I lovecomputing, and so you'll see
videos about some of thosethings as well. So yeah, if
you're looking you can look overto Mr. Riley's world on YouTube.
And, yeah, we'll just leave withthat one, because I have, I have
tons of social media platforms,but we'll just leave you with
those two this week in pallyfootball and
(44:53):
Mr. Riley's world. All right,thanks again for joining us, and
thank.
You for joining the Falling forLearning Podcast, again, please
do something today that yourfuture adult kids will thank you
for. !ll right, thanks forjoining us.
Thanks again for supporting theFalling for Learning Podcast,
(45:17):
new episodes go live everySaturday at 5pm
you can watch us onyoutube.com/@fallingforlearning,
or listen on all major podcastplatforms such as Apple, Google,
Audible, Spotify and much morefor more resources, visit
(45:39):
falling in love withlearning.com
We really appreciate you. Have awonderful week!
Hello. Welcome to the Falling for Learning Podcast. I
(00:04):
am TD Flenaugh. This is episode77. Today we have a special
guest. His name is James Riley,and he is a career educator, and
he serves as a restorativejustice educator, and he's going
to get into details about whatthat means, and about
consequences and punishments andall that for schools and what
(00:25):
you may think about doing athome if you are a homeschool
parent, let's get into it.
Hi. Thank you so much forjoining the Falling for Learning
Podcast. We have this podcast tohelp parents and caregivers with
having the resources, strategiesand tools needed to make sure
that their children are on trackfor learning and to stay on
(00:47):
track for success.
Hi, how are you doing? Mr.
Riley,I'm doing great. How are you
good? So everyone, this is JamesRiley, you're, we're, we work
together right now, and we'regoing to talk about, you know,
his role in schools, and howthat fits into like,
(01:10):
consequences, punishments andall that. So how is your
holidays, or your holidays goingso far?
Well, seeing that, we're acouple of hours into it, you
know, you know, Yesterday wasFriday. The break is today. So
today was, you know, I've beenup since 630 this morning, on
(01:32):
the go, non stop, and I stillhave one more thing to do before
the night is all done. So if Ihad to put it all in one word
today, the first day of break,it has been very busy but very
gratifying.
Alright,very busy but very gratifying.
Okay, so we like to talk aboutall kinds of things on this
(01:57):
podcast that are related toeducation, helping kids to fall
in love with learning, helpingguiding parents in to strategies
and tips on how to make thathappen before we get into that,
we also like to talk about,like, what made you fall in love
with learning as a child?
(02:18):
You know, that's a goodquestion.
Um, so falling in love withlearning as a child,
I really don't know what made mefall in love. I just did what
was normal as anyyou know, childhood or child age
person would do, just attendschool, you know, try to get the
(02:39):
a on the test. You know, Iwasn't that successful all the
time, but I did, you know, trymy best. I listened to my
teachers, follow theinstructions. I was one of those
dudes who was just, you know,kind of, you know, walking by
the line and just doing what Iwas supposed to do, you know,
because I know that mom in thefamily wanted me to do well, and
(03:01):
so I gave it my all. And itreally wasn't until my college
days that I really developed afondness for learning. And you
know, so I have to say, itdidn't necessarily begin in my
childhood, but somewhere, youknow, around young adult ish, I
guess was when I kind of pickedup and really begin to
(03:24):
understand what learning coulddo for someone. So, yeah, I
would have to say it didn'tbegin as a childhood, in my
childhood, but as a young adult.
So you're starting with, you'rebasically saying you started
with just compliance, doing whatyou were told to do, following
(03:47):
the rules, and then later on, itkind of caught on for you. So
what were some kind ofactivities and things like that
that you were involved in?
Because one thing is, youweren't turned off from
learning. I guess you were stillinvolved, right? So what are
some things that you wereinvolved in as a kid that led to
your career that you have now,or your career in education
overall? Absolutely. So when Iyou know, just, just about, you
(04:10):
know, a lot of young boys havedreams of being a professional
athlete. So for me, it wasn't,you know, oh, I want to be a
cop, or I want to be a firemanor police officer or lawyer, you
know, I was like, hey, I want togo to the I want to go to the
NBA, right? But I didn't havethe skills, right? So, middle
school, you know, I playedbasketball, but I wasn't like,
(04:32):
the top dude, right? And theneven in high school, you know, I
went to high school out there inthe valley. Shout out to El
Camino Real in the valley.
So I went there. And, you know,I love basketball as a kid, and
so when I matriculated to highschool, kind of fell in love
with track and, you know, so Ifound myself in a lot of
(04:54):
extracurricular activitieswhere, you know, activities, or,
you know, moving around was, waskind of.
Necessary for me. So just,you know, just being involved in
kind of learning about sportsand being a sports person, and
really trying to find my ways,like, Okay, well, I didn't make
the varsity team. So what elsecould I do to kind of help, you
know, facilitate what I'm goingto do later on in life. So for
(05:17):
me, you know, trying to developsome of those skills. It's like,
okay, you're not always going todo what you want to do, but you
need to pick up something. Youneed you need to be good at
something. So one of my favoriteactivities as a child was
photography, and so I rememberbeing in sixth grade, fifth or
sixth grade, using, I don'tknow, I'm dating myself right
(05:39):
here, I'm gonna date myself.
Okay, dateyourself. So, yeah. So my
grandmother, you know, she wasfrom the south, South Carolina,
and she would always go to,like, what they would call them,
rummage sales, or we refer tothem as yard sales, right? You
know, the the kind of academicword for Roman sale, right? So
(06:01):
we would go to yard sales and orshe would, and then she found a
camera for me. So it was an oldcamera. It was a 120 film kind
of camera.
So you remember 120 now, this isokay, see, you don't even
remember that.
So, like I said, I'm kind ofdating myself, but eventually,
(06:22):
you know, I kind of use thatcamera. And then my my
grandfather, on my father'sside, he kind of, no, actually,
was my uncle. My uncle had aCanon camera, and I kind of
picked it up and was using itwhen I was hanging out with him.
And so eventually, mygrandfather bought me my first
35 millimeter camera. It was aCanon AE one, which was a top of
(06:43):
the line camera. And so I kindof developed the skill of
photography as well. So I knewif I didn't become a basketball
player, at least, I can dosomething in the trade centered
around photography. So that'skind of where I was. And I kind
of carried that love ofphotography throughout high
school. You know, I didn't. Iwasn't on the yearbook staff
(07:06):
because most of the time I wasparticipating in a lot of the
sporting activities at theschool, either fall would be
basketball, spring would betrack. So I didn't, I wasn't a
part of a yearbook, but I didtake several courses from the my
teacher, Miss Weaver, CarolynWeaver at and I still remember
(07:27):
her today.
She had a wonderful impact on mein terms of, you know, using
photography and, you know, kindof understanding photography and
taking it to another level. Soshout out to miss Weaver. And
so, yeah, so that's kind of whatI learned. And then from there,
I wanted to be a photojournalist.
So, you know you talk aboutcoming out of high school and
(07:50):
figuring out what I wanted todo. Well,
the most important thing thatseniors do when they graduate
high school is they go tocollege. Well, for me, you know,
my mom, she didn't necessarilygo to college. My dad, she did
attend trade school, but my dad,he went straight into the Air
Force. So, you know, for them,and then for a lot of
(08:12):
you know, my my grandparents, Iwas the first kid to kind of go
to college. So for me, was a bigthing. And so I figured, okay,
you know, I couldn't. I didn'tgo to like Michigan State or
UCLA. I just went down thestreet. I went to El Camino
College over in torts, because Iwas not ready. All right, I
wasn't ready. Didn't didn'tunderstand, didn't really have
(08:33):
anyone to kind of tutor me alongthe process in terms of taking
tests. And, you know, it wasjust okay, let's graduate high
school and then figure outwhat's next. So for me,
now, I don't know if we havingsome technical difficulties, but
(08:54):
I can't hear you.
No, I can read your lips, thoughI accidentally muted myself. I'm
really, oh okay. There you go.
Okay. There you go. Oh no, thereyou go. Thanks for letting me
know. Yes, but you know, how didyou know you weren't ready?
Um, you know, I just, I mean, alot of the kids, because I went
(09:18):
to a, you know, PWI,predominantly white, you know,
high school out in the valley, alot of those kids, you know,
they had parents who kind ofknew that knew how to get on
board their kids into college,right? So for me, it was, you
know, I didn't have thatcoaching. Yeah, I had a village.
But the village was not like,okay, let's what's next for you,
(09:39):
James, you know, or they calledme Jimmy, Jimmy. What's next for
you? I didn't have a plan. So mygoal was to go to El Camino
College, go to communitycollege, and kind of figure it
out. But I did know that Iwanted to have something to do
in photojournalism, so startedtaking classes there. I ran
track there.
(10:00):
My first year,but then I got a job.
Part that you brought up becauseyou, you're saying you didn't
have, like, really good skillsto become, like
a professional athlete, but youeven community college, you were
able to still run track, whichwas, I'm sure, helpful in
keeping you involved with thecollege life? Yeah, absolutely.
(10:24):
I mean, because you still haveto learn discipline, there's a
lot of things that you canlearn, you know, by being on a
sports team, you know,discipline, you know, being on
time when you're asked to, youknow, just developing a good
work ethic, and so, you know,you kind of get those things in
a different manner than saying,you know, going to, you know,
2000 miles away, or, you know,or just across town, if we're
(10:46):
going to across town university,you know, because you got to
figure out. You got to wakeyourself up. You got, you know,
you're responsible for yourself.
Not to say that. I wasn'tresponsible, but I just didn't
have anyone who, who kind of hadme going down the right path,
right? I didn't take an A C TD,didn't take an S, A, T had no
clue what it was. And I, youknow, I was so naive, I didn't
even ask. It was like, Whaty'all taking a who? Oh, okay,
(11:08):
all right,peace, do your thing, you know,
I, I had no clue.
Which is why? Yeah, which iswhy, you know, I figured the
community college will be agreat way for me to kind of, you
know, have a good understanding,develop some skills, and then,
you know, just kind of use that.
And you know,that's what I did. So eventually
(11:29):
I got the AA degree byattending, you know, El Camino
College, matriculated over toLong Beach State, you know,
again, I'm working, so I'mputting myself through school at
this point. You know, mom is notpaying for me. Mom has moved
across country taking care ofher, of her parents with
Alzheimer's. So, you know, itwas incumbent on upon me to, you
(11:50):
know, figure it out. I couldn'tcall Hey mom. Can you Hey mom?
Nah, mom.
She, taking care of, you know,elderly parents of her so, you
know, 3000 miles across the way.
So I had to figure it out, and Idid, but it took some time, but
I eventually, you know, it wasthrough trial and error. Okay,
(12:11):
so you said it took you sometime. So how long were you in
the community college? So let'ssee. I graduated in 86 from high
school, and I think I finallygraduated from El Cole in 91 I
want to say, because, like Isaid, I was putting myself
through college, and so I wasworking. I got a job with the
(12:33):
county, working at a localhospital. And so, you know,
working, going to school,sometimes, being on academic
probation,you know, it's like, okay, bro,
you got to get this thingtogether, right? Okay, so we
figured it out, and so we we wewalked, we celebrated. Okay,
what's next, right? So we didthe thing in Long Beach. Got
(12:57):
into Long Beach, they had awonderful photojournalism
program. And the only thingabout it is you have to be a
part of the campus life toreally be a participant in
photojournalism. Okay. Well, Mr.
Kelly, the professor there, whowas, you know, who was known,
(13:19):
world renowned photographer,photojournalist, you know, I
again, because I'm puttingmyself through school. I didn't
have the time, you know, this islike a regular nine to five
where I couldn't just, like,Alright, I'm not coming in
today,you know. So, so again, I had to
figure out what, what was nextfor me. And so, you, you talked
about education. I figured, youknow, I could take some black
(13:42):
studies courses, kind of get intune to who I am, and, you know,
what kind of impact I can makein my community. And through
that, I figured, okay, aftergraduating, maybe, because I had
such wonderful teachers in theBlack Studies Department, maybe
I can be a strong AfricanAmerican male teacher and some
of our, you know, in the schoolsystem. And so I kind of
matriculated, you know, Ishifted because I couldn't do
(14:04):
funnel journalism the way Iwanted to.
And so I matriculated, and justthought about being a teacher.
And so went back to school afterI graduated at Long Beach in 98
class of 98 and, you know,started the path to become a
teacher, which, again, you know,going back to your very first
(14:24):
question, when did you become,you know, a learner. You know,
for me, young adult, definitely.
And then, you know, moved on todeveloping a passion for
teaching kids, especially kidsin our community. Okay, so
that's a long story, but that'sthat's my story. All right, so
we're going to take a quickbreak
(14:46):
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Okay, all right, so we're back.
We were hearing about, you know,your journey to become an
(15:52):
educator, and you now are takingus to the part where you are an
educator. Tell us how longyou've been teaching and what
your current role isso I have been teaching since
1998 so what's that about? 24years? 25 years, maybe. 26
almost. Okay. See, there you go.
(16:18):
26 I know it's somewhere overthere. I lose track 26 years.
So primarily working in thesouth LA area, start out as and
maybe, maybe you can identifywith this. Or maybe some of your
listeners can, especially ifthey're teachers, they can
identify with the emergencypermits or emergency credential
(16:40):
or, you know, so I did thatseries of tests you gotta, you
gotta pass within five years.
So, because I was putting myselfthrough school by this time, I
was newly married. I was marriedin 97 started working in 98 the
summer of 98 at one of thoseschools where you had year round
schools, right? You rememberyear round schools? So I started
(17:01):
there, year round and, you know,just, just going through, trying
to understand what you know ateacher looks like, you know,
should be teaching andeverything. So it was definitely
different. But I liked it. Ithink I made an impact on the
studentswho sat in my class again. Back
(17:22):
then, I had about anywhere from28 to 32 kids in the classroom.
I primarily taught fourth myfirst year I taught fourth
grade, okay,and the second year I taught
fifth grade. And I think for thefollowing four years, I think I
talked,or you kind of, it kind of went
(17:45):
back and forth, depending on,you know, the matrix. If you
know what the matrix is, that'sthe time when, in this in the
spring, teaching with onesecond, because I want to make
sure people have context. Yes,okay, go ahead. During the time
that he's referring to, therewas like a teacher shortage,
where there's often a teachershortage, but always the teacher
shortage was so bad when Mr.
(18:10):
Riley began that basically, aslong as you had a bachelor's
degree, you could become ateacher. And that's what he
means by emergency credentials.
So they let him teach, as longas he did a couple of things,
just a few things, to beeligible to be emergency
credential. Basically, you werealso saying that you're going to
work towards getting yourcredential during that time. So
so he was teaching without anyexperience as a teacher, just a
(18:34):
desire, and there was absolutelyyes. So that's where he was
coming in. And then withelementaries, if you're not
sure, clear about that, inelementary basically everyone
has the same credential, right?
So kindergarten through fifthgrade teachers, you could get
pushed, you know, matrix, oraccording to seniority, you
(18:56):
could get pushed from one gradelevel to the next, anywhere from
kindergarten to fifth grade. Ofcourse, there's some variations
that they're special day classteachers. But if you're a K
through five regular teacher,you can be moved anywhere
between kindergarten throughfifth grade. And so everyone's
kind of like, in a way,competing. They all have the
same credentials. Sojust some background. Go ahead.
(19:17):
Well said,well said, so. So imagine this.
You're working, you know, 730 tothree, and then I'm heading back
out to Long Beach State. I'mheading back out because they
have a teacher program. So withthe emergency credential, they
say, Hey, you know what? You canwork. Long as you're working
(19:39):
towards your credential, you gotfive years. You got five years
to get your credentials. So backto Long Beach, you know, I think
their program was maybe two anda half years, or just whenever
you complete it, as long as youcan complete it. Because
sometimes life does happen, and,you know, things get in the way.
But.
(20:00):
Luckily for me, I had anotherfriend, my wife's best friend,
she, she, you know, basically wewent out there at the same time.
So we would roll out to LongBeach. Sometimes I drive,
sometimes she would drive. Weroll in the same classes. And we
actually, you know, got ourteaching credential together. So
that was cool.
(20:21):
So yeah, mostly upper grade. Andthen after the five years,
I moved over to an independentCharter School, okay, and so,
which was, like the cuttingedge. So here in LA, there was a
program where there is, there'sa program called Academic, mass
academic English Masteryprogram, or commonly known as
(20:43):
amp.
So a lot of, the lot of a few ofthe
basically, there was a charterschool centered around using the
pedagogy that amp used, or wasusing, trying to teach in the
different schools. Well, some ofthe administrators of this
charter school kind of came outof that office at LA USD put a
(21:05):
charter together. And so webegin, you know, I was one of
the founding teachers of theculture and culture and language
academy for success, or wecalled it short class, C, L, A,
S, culture, language, cultureand language academy for
success. So work. Worked overthere for a while, worked as the
(21:27):
fourth grade teacher, because Ilove technology. They needed a
technology person. Worked intechnology for a number of
years, and then afterwards islike, you know what? This is
great.
Maybe I need to go back to thedistrict, and so went back to
the district. Oh, no, I'm sorry.
Let me back up. Me Back up.
(21:49):
During that same time, I wasalso working on my master's
degree in educationaltechnology, because this class,
this school, was developedbasically on Apple's one to one
device to student ratio. So eachstudent had their own laptop.
Now this is before you know.
This is this is way ahead ofthis time. So each kid had their
(22:11):
own laptop, their own laptop.
Each teacher in the classroomhad their own Promethean board.
Each teacher had their ownprojector. Each teacher had
their own, you know, a bundle ofcamera and digital tools that
they can use in the classroom.
Wow. So, so, yeah, so it was2000 this was 2002 1003
(22:39):
okay, yes. So I so I left LAUSD,
yes, yes. Cutting Edge went overto class. Was a founding
teacher. Worked there for anumber of years, and then
ultimately came back to thedistrict.
And one of the reasons I workedon my master's degree was
because they were doing somecutting edge stuff as it relates
(23:02):
to technology. So we know, forinstance, you know, one of the
big things back then was likebeing able to use Power School
to record attendance. Right now,we do it like it's we use mices
right before the before thepaper pencil. So this is a
little bit before that, yeah. Sothat was very, yeah, very so it
(23:25):
was very interesting. And sogoing through all these
different pathways and avenues,you know, with teaching students
from fourth or fifth grade, youknow, beginning my teaching
careerin LA USD, teaching at class,
being a founding teacher, beinga technology advocate, and then,
you know, just, you know,matriculating back over to the
(23:47):
district. You know, I foundmyself in different spaces,
different areas. I mean, I'vetaught everything from kinder to
eighth grade, because class wentup to eighth grade eventually.
So it did start out as a k5 andthen eventually expanded to
middle school.
So I've, I've taughtyou know, everything from kinder
(24:08):
to eighth, either self containedclassroom or as a technology
advocate, or what they called usat a class student advocate,
which is basically a differentname for just a teacher, right?
Um, so we do some cutting edgestuff. So I've been a lot of
places. I've done some long termsub assignments because, you
(24:32):
know, I could, I could tell you,you know, 2009 what happened?
There's a lot of cut out, a lotof layoffs and everything, yes,
and so I was victim of thelayoff because I was newly back
to the district, and so I had toagain, Mr. Riley, had to figure
it out. But, but through allthat, I still did not leave my
(24:54):
passion for learning. And so Ithink that's kind of what your
the focus of your podcast is.
And then.
Thinking about, like, how wecould support parents. And one
aspect of your current job isyour what's your official title
right now? So, yeah, so before,before I talk about the
restorative justice teacher forthe Now, going back to 2009
(25:18):
so a couple years after that,one of the teachers
was unable to fulfill her, herher job duties at a school, so I
had a long term sub assignmentin this class. And then one of
the coaches like, hey, maybe youshould be you're pretty good,
you're pretty patient with theselittle kids. And now mind you,
(25:40):
these were and I never hadexperience with working with
special education students whoare preschool. So they were
between the ages of three andfive. They were on the autism
spectrum. So for me, very firsttime, it was about seven kids, I
had a couple of adults in theclassroom. And the good thing
about this class is they wenthome at 1130 right? So, or 1130
(26:05):
12, but they weren't there fullday, right? So, you know, the
coach came in. Hey, you shouldbe good for this. Okay, great.
So then I had to go and get aspecial education degree for
early childhood specialeducation, so for the for the
previous 10 years, that's what Iwas doing, working in a
(26:25):
preschool comprehensiveclassroom with students with
autism between the ages of threeand five. So even though I was
working at our current school, Ifound myself disconnected a
little bit, because a lot of thethings that I did in my
classroom, alot of the things we would do in
staff meetings and, you know, itjust or professional
developments, it just didn'tapply to me. Because, you know,
(26:46):
I'm three to five, you know,ages three to five on autism
spectrum, preschool kids, right?
So your current role now, I gotyou and a restorative justice
teacher, absolutely and how,what kind of ideas or strategies
can you talk to like? Well,first of all, tell us what it is
(27:08):
yes to talk about how peoplecould apply that, either with
what they do as at home withtheir kids, or as they are just
guiding their kids as well andabsolutely so this year we had a
vacancy at our school, and, youknow, they closed my classroom
down. So the Classroom programwhere I taught, it doesn't exist
(27:31):
anymore at my school site. Sofor me, yeah. So for me, I had
to figure out either apply toanother, you know, school, go to
another school or because, ifthis position is available, why
don't I see if I can, you know,fulfill it. So interview with
the principal. He was like, Hey,you got it. I want you. I'm
(27:52):
like, Cool. I want to stay hereas well. So now I'm currently
serving as the restorative, theBSAP restorative justice teacher
at my school site, and I'll go,go ahead and provide context for
you. BSAP stands for the BlackStudent Achievement Plan, where,
within, I think, our lastcontract renewal with the
(28:16):
district, there was clausewritten in for teachers, or for
schools or for the schooldistrict to supply BSAP funded
personnel at each of ourschools. So the BSAP team in my
school, we have myself arestorative justice teacher.
There's a PSW psychiatric socialworker for students, we have a
(28:40):
PSA who really focuses in onattendance. We have a parent
rep, and then we have a schoolclimate advocate, which kind of,
they kind of do fun things withthe students, you know, during
your recess and lunch, and kindof makes it, you know, those
kind of times a little bit moreengaging, right? Give them
opportunities for a little bitmore
(29:04):
activity together, closeness,and so that's kind of, you know,
I'm part of that BSAP team.
So being a BSAP RJ teacher, oneof the things, and I'm, I'm
green to this position, I amvery new RJ, meaning restorative
justice. Yes, restorativejustice.
Thank you. Restorative justice.
So basically it is if you havesomeone who has caused harm to
(29:27):
somebody, maybe an argument, orsometimes, you know, might be a
physical altercation orsomething. And these occur at
all levels, elementary, middleand high school. So you should
have these BSAP programsthroughout several schools. Not
all schools have the BSAPprogram. There's a certain
(29:48):
designation that schools have tofall under in order to get BSAP
funding. Butbeing a restorative justice
teacher, we we try to do.
Help the kids, help the studentsunderstand there's other ways of
dealing with the situationbesides just fighting, arguing,
(30:09):
you know, calling each othernames. And so one of the things
that I do, which is part of thepositive behavior intervention
and support team,one of the things that I do is I
hold community circles in myclassroom now. A community
circle is just when we a timewhere classes can come together
and we can talk about differentissues. So we talked this past
(30:30):
week, we talked about ourculture, holidays, things that
we do with our families now, andthose are good things, right?
But the restorative justicepiece comes in where.
So it's kind of difficult for mejust to talk to students if I
(30:51):
don't know them,but by by building community,
having conversations about someof the things that they like to
engage in outside of school orin school. It makes it a little
bit more easier for me to talkto students, if they you know,
if they're referred to me, or ifI observe something, or if a
teacher says, yeah, when theyget in trouble, it makes it much
(31:12):
easier for me to kind of talkand de escalate the situation.
And so I love the communitycircles, because that's kind of
like the entry way, the gatewayfor me to understand who the
children are who come into mycommunity circle classroom,
right? And then, so hold on. Soyou're saying when they get in
trouble, they can come to you,but also you help build
(31:34):
community. So what about like adean, or like going to the
principal's office when they getin trouble. So, yeah,
absolutely, that's still inplace. So not every thing that
students do in the classroom,you know, they don't have to be
automatically sent to theprincipal, right? So we're
talking about those there'sthere's tears, there's levels to
(31:56):
behaviors in our schools. Sothere's tier one, tier two, tier
three. Tier three is thehighest. Tier one is the lowest.
So let's just see you tier one,tier two, tier three. I got you
all of them are. So usually, ifwe're teetering around high tier
one or tier two, right now, ifwe just to give context again,
if it's all, you know, battlefist fight that's gonna go all
(32:20):
the way. That's a tier threekind of situation. So, you know,
principal might just hop intothat right now, I might do some
have a restorative practicewhere we can kind of talk about
it afterwards. But from the getgo, it's gonna go to the
principal, if the principal canhandle it, great. If he can't
handle it. Or, you know, maybethere's a referral that I need
(32:41):
to kind of talk and, you know,help the students work their way
through it. Then that's where Icome in. But we're talking
about, you know, maybe studentsarguing. So case in point, I'll
give you, I'll give you anexample. This was a tier three
behavior. However, it's probablythe classic example from this
semester, I was asked to see twostudents by a teacher. She's
(33:04):
like, hey, these students arenot kind of getting along. And
so maybe later on that day, theyweren't getting along so well
that they were pinching andstabbing each other with a
pencil.
Fifth grade each other with apencil. Oh, no, yes. Now,
instead of using their words,saying, Hey, can you not stab
(33:25):
me, or hey, can you not pinchme, they were continuously doing
that and not even telling theteacher what was going on.
So so one of the coordinatorsgot wind of it, and, you know,
they asked if I can handle it?
And I said, Sure. Or maybe,maybe she was handling it. And
then, you know, she's like, Hey,Mr. Riley, can you handle I was
(33:47):
like, Sure. So I jumped in andwe kind of talked about it, and
kind of figured it out. Now,parents were still called, not
by me, but because of, you know,the stabbing and the pinching
there was, you know, there aresome, you know, some things,
some paperwork, some additionalpaperwork that I don't have to
fill out. Okay, right? So youbasically are helping kids to
reallytalk through their emotions,
(34:11):
negative, absolutely, and that'swhat happened. And resolve
conflict in a way, yes,okay, so this is type of, wait,
this is part of a substitutefor, like, when students,
instead of, like, suspendingstudents, or how, absolutely
into it, okay, absolutely, yes,yeah. It's, it's an alternative.
(34:32):
Because, you know, years ago, wewould just say, Okay, you're
gone for two days, or you'regoing for three days. Well, I
mean, you know, going back tothat situation, you know now,
those two students, just aboutevery time I see them, they're
almost together, they'refriends, they're happy, they're
smiling. And I think it had alot to do with, you know, the
restorative practice that wekind of put in place, having the
(34:54):
girls talk to each other aboutwhat they experienced, and just.
Instead of just, you know,coping with it and dealing with
it. Hey, why don't you expressto the other person How are you
feeling and how it makes themfeel? And let's talk about this
thing, instead of continuously,you know, harming each other,
we're trying to restore so thatwe can, you know, get along and
(35:17):
be in a safe place. Becauseschools should be the safest
place that students can come to.
So that's kind of what I do.
You know, if it's a tier threewhere, you know, folks are
kicking, screaming, punching,you know, it might be all the
way it it might escalate to theprincipal. But if it's something
where I can intervene and I cantalk and, you know, have a
(35:38):
situation where we can share,you know, boys, girls can share,
then that's fine as well. Sothat's kind of part of what I
do,being a BSAP restorative justice
teacher at my school site.
Okay? And so as you're thinkingabout your role, like, what, how
did, how can parents, like,follow up and use these types of
(36:01):
practices at home with theirkids, because obviously at home,
they're not suspending theirkids, you know. So what are some
elements from what you do thatcan be used at home to help kids
in their development, absolutelywith each other. So one of the
things that I do within mycommunity building circles is, I
have students breathe and notjust and so the breathing and
(36:24):
I'm I always tell them,you know, as we're going through
my community circles, I alwaystell them, if you feel anxious
or you feel bothered or, youknow, frustrated or angry,
Take some time to breathe.
You know, try to de escalate thesituation yourself. Instead of
(36:45):
just, you know, just going allin, make sure you can calm
yourself down, right? And then,if you can calm yourself down,
then maybe some of the negativebehaviors that might come up,
you know, let's say siblings arehitting each other, right? You
know. And even parents canpractice this, you know, they
(37:05):
can practice this with theirkids, you know, let's, let's
take some time to breathe. Calmdown, you know. You know, twins
might be, you know, busy hittingand kicking each other, and they
might be trying to tell theirmom or dad or grandma what's
going on? Like, hold on. We needto just breathe,
you know, we need to calm down,and we need to get all sides of
(37:28):
the story, you know. Okay,Johnny, tell me what happened?
Is this? What happened? Billy,okay, now, you know what? What
could have been done to not bein this situation? You know,
asking those kind of restoringquestions. Or instead of hey,
you better you know how, youknow how black parents can be.
Or, you know, I mean, you knowhow parents can be, but you know
(37:49):
how black parents can be, Well,you better sense yourself. You
know, we'll, we'll just, we'llget right into it. But no,
that's an opportunity forparents as well to kind of
practice some patience,kind of breathe, you know,
figure it out. And even if youhave to separate, you know, kids
who are acting crazy off thewall, separate them, you know,
(38:10):
instruct them to kind of calmdown, do some breathing. There's
tons of breathing methods tokind of calm you down, de
stress, de escalate. And thenonce the de escalation has
happened, maybe we can have arestorative conversation to kind
of help build each other up.
(38:32):
Instead of just saying, Boy, youbetter go to that corner before
I, you know, before I get mythere's some ways to do it and
deal with it a more productiveway. And then absolutely, it
sounds like some practice forhealing, or like trying to mend
the relationship afterward. Yes,yes, because you want to, you
want to make sure that some kindof mending is taking place. Now,
(38:53):
you know, I've had a situationagain where, you know,
two girls were in the PS theschool based, PSA, she was in
there were talking to two girls,and they were, you know, going
back and forth. And, you know,off the bat, the girls, like, I
don't want to be her friend.
Sorry, hold on, what is a PSA?
(39:14):
Ah, a PSA is justpupil service. I'm not too sure
what the A is. I want to sayattended. So basically, they
take care. They help take careand monitor attendance at
schools. Okay, so we were therebecause, you know, I'm talking
to two girls. I want to makesure I have somebody else in the
room with me. And actually, she,I think she, you know, brought
(39:36):
the two girls into me so wecould kind of deal with the
situation together. So at thebeginning of the conversation,
one girl was like, huh, I don'twant to be your friend.
Butby de escalating, talking about
what happened, the needle hadmoved near the end of our
conversation to say, you know,she said, I don't I.
(40:00):
Don't mind being her friend.
Okay, you know, so you kind oftake what you can get. And so
going from I don't want to beyour friend to I don't mind, I
think that's a win situation,yeah, for sure. Because So
again, just talking, yes, theydo absolutely. And like you
said, if they get suspended,that doesn't mean that when we
come back to school, that we'renot still going to have more
(40:22):
conflicts becausewe just got in trouble. But that
didn't solve what happenedbetween it did absolutely. I
mean this, the problem is stillthere, and when was the time
that they had an opportunity totalk to one another if they're
suspended? Yeah, so suspensionshouldn't be the first thing
that we jump to we're trying torepair, because ultimately,
(40:43):
they're going to have to seeeach other, especially if
they're in the same classroom,you know, they're going to have
to get along and figure it out.
And so part of my job is to helpthem come to an understanding
where something happened. Youknow, let's acknowledge what
happened. How does each of thepeople parties feel about it,
and what can we do? What can weput in place to make sure that
(41:06):
it doesn't happen again?
We're going to end here. Wereally appreciate you coming and
talking to us about all thethings you know, like your
journey through education andobviously, parents and
caregivers can take some tipsfrom that. Sometimes kids aren't
ready to go to community collegeright away, not community
(41:29):
college, but to the four yearuniversity. That doesn't mean
that they're not going to get togetting that four year degree
later on and having a reallywonderful career, but
also like things that can bedone ahead of time to help them
think about sat, prompt them forcertain things, and then just
how the career unfolds indifferent ways. Right? You want
(41:52):
to be a athlete, you have tofigure out, like, Okay, I don't
have the skills. What can I dothat's close to it, and then
ending upgoing into teaching, because,
you know, you had an alternativepath to from journalism through
your working and family man youknow, got married and all of
that. So it was great to hearfrom you and to share your
(42:14):
information.
Can you tell us about what youhave going on because you have
like a show as well, right? Andwhere can people watch your show
and learn more about you and theservices you offer? Absolutely
well. First of all, first ofall, just want to say thank you
for allowing me to come on andrant and kind of share my story,
(42:37):
my unconventional story. I'm nottoo sure if I met the mark in
terms of what you wanted, buthopefully you're listening. Your
listeners and viewers will findsome value in what we discussed
today. Kind of listen, listeningto me and sharing my story. So I
am a a, you know,I'm a baby YouTuber, I guess. So
I, you know, people can findbaby YouTube
(43:02):
but no, I have, I have a coupleof channels you want go for it,
yeah, yeah, yeah. Only reason Isay, you know, because, again,
family time, I have to fit inwhere I can get in. And so,
you know, I have a couple ofdifferent ways that I'm, I'm on
YouTube. And so one of the waysI that I my, my release, my, my
(43:23):
give back to the community is Iam a football High School
commentator for my sons. Allthree of my sons, they attended
a charter school out here, andthey play football. And so every
Friday night, well, Footballseason is over for high school.
You can find me atThis Week in Pali football on
YouTube, and you can go check meout and have interviews with
(43:44):
some of my son's formercolleagues and current players
on the football team. Wait,what's your name? Of your
podcast? I mean, of your show,what's the name? Yes, YouTube
channel this absolutely. ThisWeek in pally football is one
this week in pally. This week inpally, football is one, but my
main channel, if you type in onYouTube, Mr. Riley's world, you
(44:07):
will see a plethora of stuff.
You'll see a plethora of things.
You'll see me reading stories.
You'll see me talking about myfamilies. You'll see me unboxing
some stuff, especially duringCOVID, which is when I had a lot
of time to upload a lot ofvideos. And so, you know, you
(44:30):
know, I love technology, I lovecomputing, and so you'll see
videos about some of thosethings as well. So yeah, if
you're looking you can look overto Mr. Riley's world on YouTube.
And, yeah, we'll just leave withthat one, because I have, I have
tons of social media platforms,but we'll just leave you with
those two this week in pallyfootball and
(44:53):
Mr. Riley's world. All right,thanks again for joining us, and
thank.
You for joining the Falling forLearning Podcast, again, please
do something today that yourfuture adult kids will thank you
for. !ll right, thanks forjoining us.
Thanks again for supporting theFalling for Learning Podcast,
(45:17):
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you can watch us onyoutube.com/@fallingforlearning,
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(45:39):
falling in love withlearning.com
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