In a room full of warm lightbulbs and rows of plants, punk music blares through stereo speakers at eight in the morning while Riley Walker sits with his fingers steepled at his desk.
Walker is a Colorado Springs native who grew up in the ‘90s and 2000s. As a kid, he gravitated towards emotional music due to the circumstances he lived in, making his debut into the alternative music scene through emo and pop punk. “When I was young, Colorado Springs was a way more conservative place than it is now,” Walker said. “I found it to be intolerant and oppressive.”
As he grew, he started to distance himself from the emo scene, finding it too corporate and artificial. “I was more angry than I was sad. I was like ‘I don’t want to be sad about a girl. I want to be angry about something,’ because I felt—even then—that anger is an emotion that stimulates action,” Walker said.
About eleven years ago, Walker hosted a radio show which evolved into a local music review. He met many new faces along the way, one of whom encouraged him to go see a recent band play a show. Walker attended the show as well as the many others that followed. “I just started meeting all these people in the local music scene, and one of them was like, ‘you have to see this band, Cheap Perfume,’” Walker said, “So I went to their shows, and they became my favorite band ever.”
Walker eventually found himself teaching at Manitou Springs High School where he applied his punk mentality to his education of the next generation. “I always say that I went into teaching to take an inhumane system and make it a little bit more humane. Punk rock is deeply embedded—in who I am as a teacher and why I teach—in my teaching philosophy, for sure,” Walker said.
His years of experience in both teaching and punk bring a distinct perspective to his classroom, where he melds the two into a specialized style of educating. “Punk rock and education are pretty much the same thing to me. Punk rock teaches you to lean into the world, to figure out how to do things yourself, to clarify and fight for your values, to create passionate and supportive communities. Education is a tool to create independence, to build yourself into the person you want to be. Same thing with punk rock,” Walker said.
Lawrence Housley, a coworker and friend of Walker, describes punk as a counterculture movement—a rebellious act to talk about things in society that people couldn’t normally or comfortably talk about. “It was sort of in response to the social norms of the 20th century world: England, the United States,” Housley said. “It’s a chance for people to step out of the norm.”
The norm is something Walker regularly steps out of, straying past typical expectations and being unapologetically himself. “Mr. Walker’s a pretty unique dude. He’s got a somewhat abstract way of thinking. He’s what I would call an iconoclast. He attacks the norm; I think punk does that,” Housley said.
Dominic McCollough, Walker’s former student, attributes Walker’s talent for teaching to his love for punk. “I know Walker has always been a big fan of punk,” McCollough said. “Walker, I know, shares a lot of the same appreciation as an English teacher—and an activist—for the movement, and the unity that comes from this movement. I think one of the reasons Walker is Walker is because of how he can take those examples from history and use them in a palatable way to teach high school kids about the world.”
McCollough recalls interactions both in and outside of the classroom with Walker, specifically one such meeting at a Cheap Perfume show. “I was at a punk show at a local bar called Thrashers, it’s like a bar music venue, and Walker was there because one of his favorite bands was playing. I just got to listen to the music with Walker and talk to the band members—because Walker is friends with them, and yeah it was a good way to connect,” McCollough said.
Even during school operating hours, Walker refuses to lose his punk streak. He participates in activism throughout the school and helps develop the learning environment. “I think one of the most punk things I have ever seen Walker do was advocate for student individuality, student choice, and the restarting of the GSTA (gay-straight-transgender-alliance) club at school,” McCollough said. “I think advocating for that is a great step up for somebody to be able to see their teacher, and somebody that they trust as a peer, advocating for their rights and representation.”
Walker—in both his personal and professional lives—has been guided as he grew by punk. He evolved his music taste just as his music taste evolved him. He sees it as a way to embrace hard things, to find solutions, and grow from the struggles. “I think that it’s important to look at things and not turn away when we might want to turn away,” Walker said.
