That morning, I met Mario in the cafeteria, where all the students arrive in the morning before they go to advisory. Then we went to first period, which was learning lab. Then to PE. It was Block Day. (The periods are a lot longer on Block Day. Kids complain about it.) On Block Day, students get to go to the park for PE. They play basketball. I hadn’t yet gone to the park with the students. Our school is entirely indoors and has no windows, so the park experience is really needed for our students.

I ended up playing basketball because none of the girls were participating and I was trying to get the girls involved. It’s interesting to see different sides of a kid. Some students are super cooperative in the academic setting but won’t follow directions in PE.

It takes 15 minutes to walk to the park and back. I hung back a little to watch Mario socialize. He didn’t seem interested in socializing with me, but he was socializing with some of the kids who have been mean to him.

Then we had lunch in the cafeteria. I sat at the table with Mario. He doesn’t have a crew of kids that he hangs out with, but a few other kids were sitting with him. I can’t remember what we were eating—maybe tamales or a chicken sandwich.

Then back into advisory for a silent sustained reading period, where the kids sit and read a book of their choice. Mario had actually fallen behind in a writing assignment for that teacher, so she had him work on that instead.

Third period was humanities. Mario was pulled into a small group of four to talk about annotating. The teacher and the rest of class were working independently. I reflected that both Mario and I were feeling really low-energy.

I was teaching fourth period after that, so I had to leave.

The day was different mainly because I didn’t bring my computer. I’m in the mix more than the average administrator — I have a desk in the hallway. I go to classes, but I’m usually observing and scripting.

That day, however, I tried to avoid looking at my phone and made a point to be present.

The takeaways from the day? I was glad that we are pretty free about letting students go to the bathroom, because I had to go to the bathroom during the day. I have freedom of movement, and so should students.

And the day made me wish the students had more opportunities to get a literal breath of fresh air. We need to continue thinking of creative ways for kids to be outside.

Shadowing Mario also helped me realize we need to do more to support the teacher who has a tough advisory group. It’s not the positive space we want it to be. It’s a challenging mix of personalities. We need to reshuffle the group. There’s an urgency there that I hadn’t recognized.

At the school we have been having conversations with each other and with this group of boys about the bullying for months. Shadowing Mario I realized that things are much more fluid than I previously thought. I saw Mario laughing at a joke told by one of the kids who has been mean to him. The dynamic is more ebb and flow, less black and white. It makes sense. It’s like some days we’re cool with each other, and some days we’re not. Some days we’re on, and some days we’re off.

I didn’t know that I was going to do this work until I took some education classes in college. I attended private school for my entire education. I grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Saint Ann’s School in 2000. I was never exposed to public school and didn’t learn about the inequalities within them. Now that I know, I know I need to do something about it.

Photographs by Talia Herman for BRIGHT.