Christopher Jones is an Instructor in History and Social Sciences, Assistant Coach for Girls Basketball, and a complimentary House Counselor in Whitney House. He was previously the Chair in History from 2014 to 2020 and took a six year interim to pursue a PhD in history at Brown University. In his free time, he enjoys bird watching, playing board games with friends, and spending time in nature.
Where did you grow up and how did that shape your interests?
I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I grew up there until I was nine. [I] then moved to Connecticut, and I’ve been in New England ever since. I spent a lot of time growing up being influenced by my older sisters. I had two older siblings who were very invested in some of the things that I became invested in, like reading and literature and storytelling, but also music. [For] lots of younger siblings, you try to emulate your older siblings a lot of the time when you’re young and little, and I naturally took up the kind of things that they took up, because I was copying them, and lo and behold, I loved that stuff too. Growing up with two older siblings is probably the thing that influenced me the most. They ended up going in a route more toward English and English literature, and I found my way to history, but I think that the notion of storytelling at the heart of that is what connects it all. They’re probably the most important influences on me growing up.
What is your favorite part of teaching history at Andover?
One favorite part is working with students. Another favorite part is engaging with really interesting, sometimes provocative, sometimes troubling, but complicated ideas that emerge [from] studying the past, and it’s intellectually really stimulating. I also love working with my colleagues. [Andover] is a great place to work, to have colleagues that are as talented and smart and love history as much as I do.
What interests you about the Civil War era?
Initially, you get drawn into something that’s so disruptive, so catastrophic to a society because it’s just full of phenomenal human stories about how people cope with enormous amounts of change, enormous amounts of bloodshed, enormous amounts of tragedy, and to study elements of human resilience in those moments can be very compelling. Particularly, the African-American story in the Civil War is [what] would otherwise be a long story of bloodshed, and gives it a real sense of meaning beyond simply battlefields or politics, but something about human dignity and what the meaning of freedom is.
Why did you decide to pursue a doctorate in history at Brown, and how did it impact the way you teach?
I just wanted to dig more into history. It’s great to be a student, and it’s easy to take that role for granted when you’re a student all your life… And then as soon as you’re not a student, you realize how amazing it is to be a student because you get to study and investigate. In graduate school, you get to investigate things that are particularly important to you. I wanted to pursue American history, especially nineteenth-century American history, and I was lucky enough to get an opportunity to do that with some great professors at Brown. It really enriched my understanding of history but also how I think about teaching, and how I think about texts, how I read. I was lucky to be able to do it, and to be able to return to teaching afterwards, where my graduate work has changed the way I approach things in the classroom, hopefully for the better.
You’ve worked on various committees at Andover, including the Strategic Planning, Challenging Histories and Head of School Search Committees. What did you gain from them?
Working on committees is really rewarding, because you get to connect with teachers from across the school. I spend a lot of time working with my colleagues in the History Department, which is wonderful, but when you work on larger committees or school-wide committees, you get to connect with other teachers who often teach you about different parts of the school that you might not necessarily know that much about. They remind you that there’s different forms of teaching for different kinds of content and in different disciplines, and you just get to work with talented people that otherwise exist in different buildings and have different classes and [that] you don’t just see every day. There’s something very collegial and important about committee work that I really value, and it helps make us a tighter community, regardless of what happens from the committee work itself. Working with other colleagues helps bring the community together a little bit.
What do you love most about coaching Girls Basketball?
I’m the assistant coach, and I have been lucky to work with awesome, amazing head coaches, and right now I get to work with Dean [Jennifer] Weissbach, [West Quad South Cluster Dean], the Head Coach, who’s fantastic. Seeing her lead the team is amazing, so one of the joys of being an assistant coach is to watch another colleague be a leader, an instructor, and an educator in a team-oriented classroom space, which is what coaching is, and that’s been really rewarding. I love basketball, and I’ve always been drawn to the fun of being on the sidelines and watching teams.
What is one book you think everyone should read?
It’s not for everyone, but last term with Seniors, we read “Absalom, Absalom!” by William Faulkner. It’s a really difficult book and a challenging book, but a rewarding one and that was just a great experience. It’s not that I think everyone should read William Faulkner or “Absalom, Absalom!” It’s that I wish everyone could find a book that presents that kind of intellectual challenge and get the enjoyment of digging into it. It [might] be Dostoevsky’s “[The] Brothers Karamazov,” or it might be Virginia Woolf… There’s so many great, amazing authors, [like] Rushdie and [his novel] “Midnight’s Children,” and I just want everyone to find their way to something that is challenging and have a reading experience that they’ll remember for most of their lives.
How did you get into bird watching, and what is your most memorable bird watching experience?
[Bird watching] is just a hobby of mine. I picked it up about ten years ago, and now I lead an afternoon activity in the spring, where we walk around and look for birds… The first time I saw a snowy owl in the wild was pretty memorable, and it’s very memorable to be with another person looking at birds when they see something for the first time. [I] had a super nice experience last spring when I went out with a student in the morning just around campus, and we actually encountered barred owls. It was their first time seeing a barred owl, and it was right down by Rabbit Pond, so it was pretty cool.
What is your favorite board game?
Currently there’s a great game called Wingspan, which combines two things I love. It combines birds [and] board games, and it’s a really fun, really well-crafted game. If you have a chance to play Wingspan, you should try it. I also think one of my favorite board game experiences was playing Pandemic Legacy with a bunch of friends. Pandemic is a board game about a global pandemic, and we were playing this game before the actual pandemic hit in 2020. You’re trying to control the pandemic before it overwhelms the world. That’s the nature of the board game, and it’s super fun.
What do you wish others knew about yourself?
Some people might know that I like birding, but I wish people [knew] that I appreciate being outside, being outdoors, being in nature in lots of different ways, and it’s not that I need people to know that about me. I wish more people would enjoy that kind of experience and enjoy that, the way that I enjoy being outside. I think it’s very peaceful and restorative, and so I wish that feeling for everyone.
