By ninth grade, I was heading down the wrong path, and I knew it. All the kids I ran with lived in the same neighborhood, had single mothers, and faced the same low expectations. Nobody had "normal" parents. We were all just trying to survive. The kids I hung out with were friends out of circumstance, not choice. Some of them ended up in gangs. Looking back now, I get it. When all you've got are low expectations, that's usually what you live down to.
Anytime I did something wrong at home, my mom would just smack me around. She'd knock me down and start hitting me with whatever was around — a three-foot shoe horn, a paddle, a stick. I learned that the faster I started crying, the sooner she'd stop. But all that taught me was how to survive my mom.
What I didn't understand then but see clearly now is this: there's a world of difference between people who use their power to hurt kids and those who use their power to help them grow. This is the heart of r restorative justice —which shapes everything about how I work with students today. When you take the time to talk to kids instead of just punishing them, they can develop agency to solve their own problems.
Four Miles and a World Away: Reed Middle School
You'd think I'd have had a little more respect for the school I lied to get into. When I was just 11, I made a decision that changed my life: I was not going to the middle school near my mom's place. That school had a bad reputation. Any time I got chased or bullied or beat up, it was always kids from that school. All the gang members I knew went there.
I found out about Walter Reed Middle School on the other side of the valley — where the more affluent kids went, where parents actually showed up. I guided my mom through signing the application, using the address of my stepdad's friend Lee, a truck driver who lived in the right zone. That address trick meant I never got report cards or any school notices, which was fine by me. Reed was about four miles away from my mom’s, but it felt like a million miles.
The truth was that I was trying to escape. Looking back now, I see that 11-year-old Jose knew something wasn't right. I didn't want the life I saw around me — the racism, the poverty, the drugs, the domestic violence. I just didn't know what I was supposed to do instead.
Running away from one set of problems just led me to others. The affluent kids at Reed had better access to drugs because they had money. And being poor hits different when you're surrounded by kids who have everything. Every morning, the bus would drop me off at the southeast corner, and I'd walk up maybe six or seven blocks. The neighborhood kids would come in through the northwest gate. Every day, watching that mix of two different worlds, I felt like a second-class citizen.
A Second Chance
By ninth grade I was classified as a “mentally gifted minor”, whatever that meant. I could always get D's without doing any work as long as I participated in class enough to keep teachers off my back. I was mostly smoking weed and hanging out behind the handball courts with guys who ended up in gangs. We'd play this game called ramp pack — taking turns getting jumped and beaten up for one minute.
I got clocked in the eye near those handball courts late in September. I remember the Santa Anas were blowing that familiar mix of olive and oak through the air when my buddy took me to the office. The secretary said to the dean, "Oh this one was hit at the handball courts. You know how they play." No questions, no investigation. I was just another boy being a boy, right? Actually, I was a stoned idiot that got jumped.
The dean tried calling my mom first, but she didn't answer. For some inexplicable reason, she'd put my dad's number on my emergency contact card even though she hated him. Lucky for me, my dad answered. He showed up at school looking like some kind of doctor in his crisp white smock — he was the state board examiner for cosmetology schools. Instead of taking me home to my mom to get beaten, he took me to lunch.
What’s Worth Fighting For?
He took me to Ernie's Taco House — dark and cozy with a working fountain and the best carne asada tacos. My mom never took us out to eat. I decided to stay quiet, but when my dad started talking about my bad grades, I snapped back, "Why do you give a shit?" That's exactly when I braced myself for the slap that was coming across that table.
But it never came. Instead, he talked to me. And let me tell you — that felt worse.
He started in about what's worth fighting for. "There are three things worth fighting for, mijo," he said. "One, you fight for your family. Two, you fight for people who can't fight for themselves. And three, you got to figure that out on your own. Every man has something they want that's worth fighting for." He never looked up, never raised his voice. And he called me a man.
Then he looked at my Guess jeans and Adidas shoes. He knew we were broke. He knew we were on food stamps. What he didn't know was by ninth grade, I'd put in a few years of hustling. A bunch of us kids got picked up in a van and taken to different poor LA neighborhoods to go door to door selling chocolate. We'd come home with our socks full of cash. Plus we were regular shoplifters.
"Someone could break into your house and steal all this stuff from you," he said. "But with your education, you can get it all back. The one thing they can never take from you is your education."
I could have dismissed it all. The man had "Self-Discipline" tattooed on his arm and sure wasn’t living by it. But instead of calling him out, I felt just how right he was. The way he talked to me that day disarmed me completely. My defenses dropped, and I saw myself clearly for the first time. I couldn't keep living like I was. I didn't want to. My dad — in that one moment -— showed me that education could be my real hustle.
Turning Scars Into Lessons
A few months later, my brother and I moved in with my dad. My mom tried like hell to keep us — weeping and clinging to my crying little brother. No tears for me. I stood strong by the door and thought, "I'm out. I'm done."
On the first five-week progress report after moving in with my dad, I hit the honor roll. And I stayed there — all the way through getting my master's degree at UCLA in my 40s. I excelled not because somebody pushed me, but because somebody cared enough to talk to me like a man. My dad wasn't perfect. Far from it. He left my mom and a trail of other broken hearts. But he did something brave. He held out his arms and said, "Look at me, mijo. Don't be like me." He turned his scars into lessons so I could do better. I was smart enough to know that even if he couldn't live up to his own advice, I needed it.
What made the difference wasn't just his words — it was how he used his power. Instead of slapping me across that table at lunch, he chose to talk to me. He showed me what's possible when someone in authority chooses to connect rather than control.
That thirteen-year-old me is like so many of our students today. They long to live up to high expectations but end up living down to low ones. They want authentic connection but settle for bonding through hustling and troublemaking. They know they don't want their current reality but can't imagine a different one. When parents and teachers use their power to work with kids — instead of using their power over them — opportunities for healing and real learning can begin. That's what restorative justice is all about.
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