About the Human

I’m Dave Robles: teacher, writer, marathoner, gamer, and your friendly neighborhood co-conspirator in the sacred labor of helping young people feel fully, stubbornly human.

Most mornings I’m up before the sun, lacing up my running shoes or opening my notebook, trying to honor the same thing I ask of my students: show up with heart, show up with intention. I’ve taught thousands of young people across classrooms that vibrate with laughter, grief, curiosity, chaos, and the kind of small, daily courage that never makes it to the honor roll but absolutely changes lives.

Teaching is my vocation and my rebellion.

I believe classrooms are places where we practice freedom, where young people learn to argue with dignity, write with fire, recover from harm, and build the kind of community the world keeps pretending isn’t possible. I teach through abolitionist principles: no throwaway kids, no punitive rituals, no love withheld. Students deserve classrooms designed for belonging, not compliance; for imagination, not fear.

I write because writing is how I make sense of this holy work. My journals are littered with stories from the classroom, letters to the kids who cracked me open, fragments of abolitionist theory, and prayers disguised as lesson plans. “A Universal Design for Loving” is where those threads gather. It’s a place where teaching meets liberation, and where the mundane moments of school life shimmer with meaning.

I run marathons for the same reason I teach: discipline is a form of devotion. Every mile is a conversation with myself, every finish line a reminder that transformation is slow and sweaty and rarely glamorous. Running keeps me honest. Teaching keeps me tender. Writing keeps me awake.

And yes, indeed! I’m a gamer. My students know that half my classroom rituals come from RPG mechanics, narrative arcs, and the belief that every kid deserves to feel like the hero of their own story. Gamification isn’t escapism to me. it’s research. It’s pedagogy that remembers joy is a survival skill. Whether we’re earning XP, stepping into guild roles, or arguing Supreme Court cases in actual courthouse chambers, the coordinates are always the same: wonder, dignity, power, love.

If you’re here, I assume you believe in something wild:

that kids deserve tenderness,

that teachers deserve joy,

and that the world can be rebuilt through a thousand tiny acts of educational courage.

Welcome home.

Pull up a chair.

Let’s build something freer together. One story, one lesson, one brave conversation at a time.

Because every child deserves a classroom designed for loving.