F O R M E R FAC U LT Y P R O F I L E b y Ro g e r F. S t a c e y, Fa c u l t y E m e r i t u s
L ee Behnke
Upper School Latin Teacher
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Let Morgan Mead, her former colleague at BB&N, say it: “Lee Behnke
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is the Yo-Yo Ma of classroom teaching: inspired and inspiring, passionate and gifted. Her life has been full of exploration and excitement, from her post-college years in the Peace Corps to celebrating the millennial New Year’s Eve under a tent in the Indian desert, but I know she still considers teaching the greatest adventure of all.” PICTURED: 1. Lee Behnke, circa 1987 2. Lee Behnke with her husband Michael
Hired by Peter Gunness to replace retiring long-term Latin teacher Sam Powers, Lee arrived at BB&N in 1983—one of an unusually large group of new faculty members that year—and immediately made her classroom in the Pratt Wing her own, in part by causing scenes of Roman life to be painted (where else?) on the ceiling. Sharon Hamilton, former head of the English department and Lee’s friend, recalls how “Lee’s classroom, with its colorful maps and posters, busts of ancient sages, lists of Latin roots, and samples of student projects, seemed like a metaphor for the wide range of her interests and perspectives. It invited students to learn. As a colleague, she was unfailingly gracious and inventive. Lee is a classic extrovert, who relishes interactions with others and radiates the sunshine of her happy, understanding nature.” Building upon her public school teaching in Winchester, Lee created the Latin Club and introduced The Junior Classical League’s Certamen competition to BB&N. Students one year built and raced a chariot; in another, they held a Symposium, complete with togas and a (wineless) meal. BB&N hosted the League’s convention once and became one of its leaders in awards for competence in the language. The popularity of Latin skyrocketed, and the number of students writing Latin AP exams soared. Journalist and broadcaster Emily Kumler Kaplan ’96 recalls what is was like to be in Lee’s class: “Magistra Behnke had a reputation as a tough teacher. Her three-ring binder pop quiz was enough to make some students take up Spanish. “Many teachers might have lumped me, a disorganized mess freshman year, into the category of kids who weren’t 32
going to amount to much. Magistra Behnke somehow managed to see through my rebellious, chaotic, adolescent attitude, showing me who I was and what I was capable of. Her steadfast insistence that I was smart and had something to offer, and her encouraging me to live in Rome during my junior year at BB&N, changed my life forever. “Our shared love for mythology was the beginning of my understanding of the power of storytelling, which served me well when I went on to major in ancient history, then as a professional storyteller, and when I worked for ABC’s 20/20 show.” Another of Lee’s innovations was a trip to Italy in March. “Touring historical sites was an amazing capstone for six years of Latin classes. The classroom had always felt so alive with examples of student Latin projects hanging on the walls, but to see ruins and artifacts in person brought our studies to life in a different way, grounding what we saw in what we had learned and allowing us to make discoveries on our own,” says Liz Kukura ’97. The BB&N/Tufts in Talloires summer program, a felicitous union of secondary school and university that brought students to the Tufts campus in France to study language, history, and Roman archaeology, grew from those March trips and Lee’s connection to Tufts Professor Steven Hirsch, with whom she had worked on her M.A. in classics. Colleague Peter Amershadian taught French—and negotiated with the eccentric owner of the hotel where everyone lived. Bill Fregosi, BB&N’s theater designer, who subsequently joined as a lecturer and collaborator, remembers how Lee “used the wonderful multi-course
evening dinners to instill the culture and customs of France, including table manners and the value of good conversation, while reveling in the cuisine. Lee was very serious about polishing up our students for the lives for which their education and intelligence qualified them.” Another colleague from that era was fond of observing, “Lee Behnke can create substantial educational experiences out of thin air and her Rolodex, and makes it look far easier than it is.” Lee left BB&N in 1997, when her husband Michael became Vice President for Enrollment at the University of Chicago, where Lee soon found herself teaching humanities and heading the undergraduate Latin program (and brought the Talloires program with her). BB&N colleague Althea Cranston, who visited, recalls, “I saw Lee’s characteristic precision, warmth, wit, and energy, as she launched into the lesson, occasionally making jokes—in Latin, of course! Although the class was college level, she treated them as she had her high school classes at BB&N. She asked about roommate problems and ribbed a chronic latecomer. The students responded with delight, affection, and respect.” When the Behnkes returned to New England in 2009, they substantially renovated and enlarged an old family house on Maine’s southern coast and found a loft apartment within sight of the Boston Public Library (and around the corner from Trinity Church, where Michael is a first tenor in the choir). In no time, Lee was back in the classroom, teaching part-time at Phillips Exeter until 2014, when winter commuting from Maine or Boston became increasingly difficult.
A self-described “theater fanatic, opera fan, and movie and concert buff,” Lee also takes “solace in great stretches of time at the Boston Athenaeum” but inevitably found herself back in the classroom, this time at the Beacon Hill Seminars, offering a course built on her interest in the reception of the Classical tradition in later literature and entitled “Italy in the Anglo-American Imagination.” Jan Beaven, of the Seminars, says, “Lee’s courses are masterful, and they are always oversubscribed, leaving aspiring students on a wait list. Guided by her suggestions of material, students investigate topics and then lead discussions, making them ‘teachers,’ too. “This year, Lee joined the Board, which allows her to broaden her educational influence by participating in the Curriculum Committee and by sharing her interactive teaching model with other seminar leaders.” Lee’s most recent innovation is “Camp Gramsie,” an elaborately detailed and written program of activities focused on—but not limited to—books, conducted for her four lively grandsons each summer in Maine. As Morgan Mead says, “Taking a passionate interest in her surroundings, her companions, and in the life of the mind comes naturally to Lee. It is that excitement she has spent a lifetime inspiring in everyone she encounters.” Hopeless without some kind of classroom (“like a racehorse without a harness,” she observes), Lee Behnke continually returns to teaching, renewing herself and those around her in the process. b 33