Interrupted Schooling Meant A Pause In Discipline. For Some Students, That Was A Relief

After his remote school days, Will Brown walks around Mattapan and Dorchester to “refocus.” (Max Larkin/WBUR)

Take away Will Brown’s commute to and from his home on the Dorchester-Mattapan line — and he gets time to think.

“After a school day, I normally go for a walk and just listen to some tunes,” Brown says. “Just… refocus myself, you know?”

Brown, a junior at Boston Arts Academy, is still learning entirely remotely. So in the afternoons, instead of a crowded bus from the Fenway, you’ll find him walking through his neighborhood and reflecting on his life so far —  to a soundtrack of gospel, funk and Afro-Cuban.

His early years, Brown says, were “rough” — he, his mom and his sister were sharing a room in Dorchester.

“I remember days waking up and there’d be no hot water, sometimes there wouldn’t be food,” he remembers. “I wasn’t doing very well in school. I can be honest: because of the household I was living in, I always felt angry.”

Read the rest of the story at WBUR’s website.