Ava Cashman: What is your favorite restaurant in West Hartford?
Peter Jones: Probably Vinted.
AC: That’s a good one. Favorite TV show or movie?
PJ: That’s ever-changing. My wife and I have gotten into watching episodic shows, as opposed to entire movies. I think of TV shows as the way TV shows used to be, which was every week, and you waited. But now there is streaming, so it’s easier to say, “We’re going to watch an episode every night or every other night.” We really liked “The Good Place.” And then we like “The Designated Survivor” and “Madam Secretary.” Right now we’re watching “Safe,” which has these sort of mystery whodunit episodes from novels.
AC: What is a quote or motto that you live by?
PJ: I’d like to say I live by Edmund Burke’s, which is up on the wall next to Bobby Kennedy [points to the quote in his classroom].
AC: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” How come you live by that quote?
PJ: It was on my refrigerator at home. My mother put that quote up and it was on for years and years. I think we have a responsibility to make the world better.
AC: That’s a really great quote! Through your years at KO, do you have a favorite KO tradition that you look forward to every year?
PJ: Every year is a little tough because it hasn’t happened all the time, but I really like the candlelight concerts, particularly the faculty choir that has sort of come and gone.
AC: If you could only bring three items or people to a desert island, what or whom would you bring?
PJ: I would bring – I mean, it’s on my phone now, it’s not because it’s a phone – but my music. I would bring my wife. And can I bring both my children?
AC: Yeah, we can count that as a package deal! And tying into that, where and when did your love for music begin?
PJ: Very early. I like a lot of different types of music. Often music will help me relax or be mindful, or calm, or excited. It’s hard not to forget, in my “baby book” that my mother and father had when I was three, my mother said that I liked “mournful, wailing songs.” I still like mournful wailing songs. I do like sailing, but weirdly, I like Russian Liturgical church music, without being religious. Now, part of that is when I was in my early 30s, I was in an adult choir that went to Russia within 10 months of the Soviet Union collapsing. It was on a cultural exchange trip, and that was really kind of neat.
AC: That’s so interesting. And who is your favorite musician to listen to or what is a song that’s been really impactful in your life?
PJ: Bruce Springsteen has been kind of a force in my life. I have always been, since a teenager, a Pink Floyd fan. More recently, I would say in the last 20 years, Mr. Goodman introduced me to a Pink Floyd song that I really didn’t know earlier, called “On the Turning Away.” I advise listening to the words.
AC: Looking at the room that we’re in, what’s one poster, quote, or piece of decor in your room that holds a strong meaning or memory for you?
PJ: [Mr. Jones walks us through the classroom, pointing out various posters like Eleanor Roosevelt’s – “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”] And I like John Adams’ quote about learning and teaching history – “I must study politics and war, so that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, in order to give their children the right to study painting, poetry, and music.” I think it takes the idea of studying politics and war to prevent them in the future, and if they are prevented in the future, then they won’t need to be studied. And there will be opportunities for the next generation to have the freedom to study math and philosophy, which are not violent. And then when you learn about math and philosophy and how the world works, their children can then go into celebrating the arts.
AC: That’s a great quote! Building off the last question, what’s one item at your desk that you can’t live without?
PJ: I would say the stuff that I have up reminds me of why I do what I do, and where I have done it, and with whom I have done it for almost 40 years or so. They are history posters, I have every single advisee picture, I have pictures, obviously, of my family.
AC: What is your favorite thing to do on a day off from teaching?
PJ: Depends on the weather. I like to golf, I like to sail. If the weather’s not so good, I like to read. I like to listen to music. I probably watch a little too much TV.
AC: If you could have a walk-up song play every time you enter a room, what would it be?
PJ: Too hard because there’s too many songs, too much music to be able to pick one. I hope it’s not too wimpy an answer, but like a lot of things, it depends – on mood, on where I’m going. I can’t pick one.
AC: What is your favorite place that you’ve traveled to?
PJ: Cape Cod. I grew up there, it’s family.
AC: If you could teach a class at KO on anything, what would it be?
PJ: Well, I get to teach 20th Century American Music. It is a guilty pleasure. In terms of historical relevance, I think introducing students to why there were two world wars in the 20th century, when many people think of the 20th century as the most civilized time in human history, that juxtaposition is very important for students, and people, to try and understand.
AC: What celebrity, fictional character, or historical figure would you want to be best friends with?
PJ: I don’t know. I like being best friends with my wife and with Mr. Goodman! And I miss my parents, but they had great lives. They both lived to their 90s.
AC: What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received, or one that you carry with you today?
PJ: Longtime science teacher here Dick Caley, I was playing golf with him years and years ago, and I’d known him for years. At one point he said, “You would do well to listen before you speak,” and I have tried to do that. He wasn’t really admonishing me, but I think he was saying that sometimes I might have had a tendency just to talk without thinking.
AC: Throughout your years as a KO teacher and parent of KO students, what’s one aspect of KO that has changed the most during your time here?
PJ: I got here in the late 80s when the school was very much bigger. I believe, as an institution, we have become more accepting of a wider variety of different kinds of people. While I think sports are very important, I think we have become more accepting of people who are not necessarily geared towards sports. And I think that has made us more accepting and more well-rounded. And that’s not to be critical of sports. I think sports are extraordinarily important. I would say, in the same way, that one of the things that I find has been going the other way has been that we are more negatively impacting of kids doing whatever they want, or nothing.
AC: What do you mean by that?
PJ: We don’t have a sports requirement. I would like to see some kind of a stage requirement, particularly for four-year students, that, along with sports, along with community service, obviously along with academics, that we would have some kind of performance requirement. I think that a school such as ours would do well to have kids have to present themselves. Now, I think sports are part of that, but sports are more for the team and for the individual, whereas a performance counts. It’s not professionalized sports, which is for entertainment, but you can play a sporting event without fans. I don’t think you can have an art production or a play or a musical concert without an audience. I think that the school gives students a variety of opportunities. I personally think that everybody should have to experience wearing a school uniform in competition. I think everybody should be on stage in front of an audience at some point. I think that would have been much more difficult 35 years ago when there was a little bit more focus on athletics, and we were such a bigger school. And, with the culture of the society changing, I think that students are a little bit more inward, whether it is social media or whether it’s the mall. This really used to be a six-day school. And walking around on Saturdays [now], it’s like a ghost town.
AC: As a history teacher, in addition to teaching world history and U.S. history, you explore topics in your electives like religion and music. Across all of your classes, what’s the message that you hope your students take from studying history, or what lessons or outlooks do you want your students to gain from exploring history through different lenses?
PJ: They have a responsibility to be human and to learn about the positives and negatives of humanity. Not that I need to be the guide, but their knowledge, their understanding needs to be their guide.
AC: What is the best piece of advice you would give to your high school self or to the high schoolers at KO today?PJ: In many ways, my high school was kind of tough. I didn’t really know who I was, and part of that was, as a ninth grader, I was diagnosed with very serious scoliosis. I had to wear a very restrictive back brace for 24 months, so I think the advice I would give myself would be very different. I don’t know if it’s because of that or not, but I’ve always lacked a sense of self-confidence, and that’s who I am. I don’t know what kind of advice would have helped that, but I guess I would be cliché and maybe quote Shakespeare and say “To thine own self be true.” You can only be yourself and try and be the best at it. How about that one?
