Tedd Parker is an Instructor in History and Social Sciences, Assistant Coach in Boys Varsity Hockey, and former Abbot Cluster Dean. Among other courses, Parker teaches a variety of economics electives such as Environmental Economics and the History of Financial Crises. Parker has previously collaborated with the Harvard Business School and taught at the Community School of Naples in Florida. In his free time, Parker enjoys running, biking, playing golf, and spending time with family.
Do you have a favorite elective that you teach?
The class that I’ve most recently created was “The History of Financial Crises,” and that class allows a lot of intersection of both history, economics, finance, politics, so there’s a little bit of psychology in terms of trying to understand investor behavior. It also provides a lot of creativity in terms of different types of writing assignments I can use.
If you could invite any historical or economic figure to speak at your class, who would it be and what would you ask them?
The stock answer is someone like Adam Smith. And the question I would ask him is, “Did you get it right?” He wrote “The Wealth of Nations,” which is oftentimes considered to be the father of classical economic thought. And there’s been criticism, right? As the basis of capitalism, Adam Smith is the founder. He changed people’s thinking from mercantilism to the birth of capitalism. If he came back to the world right now, I’d be curious to ask him what his interpretation or his thoughts on the current state of the world are. If, in fact, we [are] living by many of the principles he wrote [about] in 1776, when “The Wealth of Nations” was written.
What’s a favorite project of yours you’ve created for students in your classes?
One of the final projects in [“The History of Financial Crises”] is the students have to come up with a scenario to predict the next financial crisis. They have to determine what the events are that lead up to it, its potential consequences, and then what they might do if they were in the position of a policy decision maker to curb the effects of the financial crisis.
If you could become a world-class athlete at one sport, what would it be?
I’d love to be a world-class cyclist. I’ve been riding bikes for a long time, maybe 30 years or so. I’m so impressed by some of the elite cyclists in the world and what they’re able to do with their bodies, especially over long distances.
You did some collaborations with Harvard Business School. Has that influenced the way you approach your teaching?
My most recent collaboration was with the Opportunity Insights Group and the professor there. His name is Raj Chetty, and he was really interested in trying to think about how the subject of economics is taught, in particular, using big data to try and solve social problems. It’s [about] taking the problem first and then trying to figure out if there’s any sort of data that can be used, and then applying and using economic principles to actually solve the problem. What we worked with him on was addressing the consequences for and potential remedies for [restricted] social mobility and economic mobility. Our relationship [and] working with him helped me realize that what’s interesting about economics is the problems that it can be used to solve, not necessarily the theories that underlie economics. It’s more in the application, in using it to try and solve some of the larger social problems that we’re facing.
Why did you decide to teach history and economics at Andover?
The opportunity to work with motivated, interested students was probably the most appealing lure to Andover. There was an opening [for a job], and they were looking for an economics and history teacher, which doesn’t come up very often. I studied economics and history in college, and I have a passion for both subjects, so it was a perfect fit.
You are an Assistant Coach for Boys Varsity Hockey. What do you enjoy about coaching?
There’s a lot of parallels between teaching in the classroom and coaching. I see athletics as an extension of the classroom in a lot of different ways. The thing that I really enjoy about it is the players that I get to interact with, and the competitive, fast-paced nature of ice hockey. I played growing up, and it’s nice to be around the game as a coach, and to still be involved in competitive athletics and to do it in the construct of the Andover community — trying to strike the right balance between academics and athletics and keeping things in their proper perspective.
Is there a lesson from playing or coaching hockey that you’ve applied to your teaching?
Not everything’s in your control. When things don’t go your way, you need to be able to react and stay within yourself and focus on the things that you can control and do them well. You need to really just focus and prepare yourself for the task that you’re being asked to do, whether it’s in the classroom or on the ice rink, and perform those things as best you possibly can, knowing that things won’t always work out exactly the way you want them to.
Is there any particular moment in a class that changed the way you thought about teaching?
I have moments often where a particular discussion might be going very well, and you see kids thinking about ideas in a different way. That level of engagement is what keeps me so interested and motivated to keep teaching. To see students have that level of interest and questioning. [To see them] starting to make connections either between their own lives and what we’re studying, or making connections between what we’re studying in one class with some of the things they’re learning in other classes. That’s what’s so rewarding.
If you could design a new course for Andover’s curriculum, what do you think it would be about?
I have been thinking about the significance of the role the Supreme Court has been playing. I’ve thought it would be interesting to go back and study some of the previous Supreme Court cases and understand the changing role that the Supreme Court has had in the decisions that it’s made. There’s a [“New Yorker”] article just recently written by [journalist, historian, and professor] Jill Lepore that talks about how the amendment process to the Constitution is broken. As a result, the Supreme Court plays a more significant role, so that’s how we’re amending, [without actually] amending, the Constitution through Supreme Court decisions. Understanding the evolution and getting up to more contemporary decisions would be an interesting class.
