Casey Zella Andrews (she/hers)
Self Bio: Casey Zella Andrews is a high school English teacher in Boston, MA. She has a BA from Hampshire College, MAT from Simmons College, and an MA in Critical and Creative Thinking from the University of Massachusetts – Boston. Casey has been teaching high school English for the past seven years; prior to that, she worked as an elementary school teacher in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In her free time, Casey is also a published poet, parent to a young child, and an avid watcher of terrible television. She has never lost a push-up competition to a student (including during pregnancy!).
Year of div: 2012
Name of div: “Just because I didn’t speak up didn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention”: Envisioning Youth and The Food Project
Description of Div: My div 3 was a two-part project: The first, longer part was an ethnographic study of participants and staff members at The Food Project (TFP), a non-profit based in the greater Boston area. I had worked at TFP as a teenager and as a young adult; I interviewed 5 former youth participants and 2 staff members (had to all be over 18) and drew conclusions based on coding the interviews. In the second part of the div, I drafted a set of short stories interwoven with poems that examined the space, or lack of space, that young people (teenagers specifically) are able to live in.
How was Hampshire influential: Being supported to be a divergent thinker, to teach and learn in ways that are anti-traditional modes, and to embrace justice as a primary pedagogical aim. I also am still in collaboration with my div 3 advisor, Rachel Conrad — we did joint projects with students for three years and are now working on a paper about it.
What place on campus was significant to you? : The library: a place of intersection, a place I met people, a place I did *a lot* of work including when my computer was stolen, a place I saw friends artwork, the place I got mail…
Describe the on-campus place as you remember it. : Large, brick, ugly. Lots of floors and staircases — hard to find the right room in the basement or the entrance to public safety (where I got keys for my work study jobs). A quiet place where I had a carrel near the second floor main stairs for my div 3. A place I one time cried outside of class. A place where I gave testimony to get someone expelled. Also where the Hampstore was and I got coffee almost every day.
What place off-campus was significant to you? : Mission Cantina, my partner my senior year (div 3) worked there so I went there almost every day.
Describe the off-campus place as you remember it. : Beautiful dark bar, margaritas, funny bartenders.
Dear Casey,
I know you’re skeptical about going to college when you could just keep working at the non-profit youth program you’re at now. But the path ahead of you opens up as a result of college. No, this wouldn’t have been true in the same way if it wasn’t for Hampshire. It’s possible it could have been similar, but it would have been harder to become the motivated learner you are today.
Getting through the first years at Hampshire won’t be easy either. You won’t fit in quite right, you won’t have the right social context to share with many of your wealthier peers, and you’ll be confused about what to do, which professors to talk to, and which classes to take. But the right coursework will fall into place as it needs to, and the right people, and the right experiences.
The openness of Hampshire will challenge you in a way that no traditional school setting ever did. In all of your classes before this, you were walled in and forced to follow rules, which you didn’t like doing. At Hampshire, you pick your own inspiration. The result of this openness will be a broadened creative capacity, a more interesting life story, and most importantly, greater ease taking on the unknown.
Looking back on the decision you have ahead of you, I can tell you that we’re still worried about the same things: will the world ever right itself, will justice be served, and will you be ok. The answer is the same as it’s always been, which is that you have to figure that out as you go, with as much strength as possible, and with a willingness to think divergently and create new pathways for yourself.
Love,
Casey
What We Remember 