A true trailblazer, history teacher Barry

where for years there were no women in the department.” In his two terms as department head, totaling fifteen years, Bienstock tried to change this. “When I was department head, I tried to bring in more women into the department and have them create more electives, essentially broadening opportunities for students.”

In addition, Bienstock worked with Caro to organize a prize for the history department, Bienstock said. “13 years ago, or so, I had lunch with Mr. Caro, and raised the idea with him of creating a prize in his name, because I noticed one thing, most of the other departments had some sort of class day prize given out, but the history department did not have a research paper one.” people like Coppola, a film director, to talk about their work because they see how excited he is and history professor, Jacobs has read a lot of books, but one thing she specifically remembers is how Mr. could never have imagined he would be working here for 41 years later, he said. Though this has been his final year at the school, he is leaving an incredible legacy behind.

When Bienstock first joined the school’s history department, there were few electives. “I created an elective in the late 80s, a Latin American History course, then I did an African American History course,” Bienstock said. Bienstock also founded a course similar to what is now Comparative Race and Ethnicity (CRAE), although the comparative aspect is new, he said.

Thanks to Bienstock, history classes taught at the school now center on understanding that history is not just a bunch of names, dates, and facts, histo- ted in countless ways to the history department. “If the history department is strong today, it‘s due to his long career and thoughtfulness about history,” UD history teacher David Berenson ‘95 said. “Mr. Bienstock’s given to the school an incredible amount of his time, his knowledge and his ability, and he‘s helped shape the history department in consequential ways.” that makes them realize that this is a very special environment.” ry department chair Dr. Daniel Link said. “I think that‘s probably obvious to all of our students now, but it wasn‘t always the case,” he said. “40 years ago, when Mr. Bienstock came in, teaching history, as I understand it, was mostly memorizing information, and spitting it back at the teacher, which tells you something, but it doesn‘t teach you how to really understand history.”

Working year round, Biensotck has made the history department one of the best in the US, head of school Dr. Thomas Kelly wrote. “Beyond his ability to recruit and hire incredible teachers, he has worked with his colleagues in the History Department to be the first Department to replace a cumulative final exam with a more purposeful paper.”

Along with expanding the department’s courses, Bienstock sought to diversify the faculty of the history department, he said. “There was a period

Bienstock likes to believe that he set the department on the right track during his time here at HM. “The department continues to evolve,” Bienstock said. “It‘s a lot stronger now than it was when I started here, back in the 1980s.”

Part of this growth, and a specialty of Bienstock, was bringing professional historians to speak to his classes, Link said. “I visited his classes a bunch of times, especially when he‘s had guests in to talk to students about what it‘s like to research and write in history and publish as a historian, which I think really gives students a great understanding for how that process works.”

Bienstock has a special ability to share his passion with others, which inspired even renowned director Francis Ford Coppola to come to the school and speak at an assembly, Link said. “Mr. Bienstock met him and invited him to come here, and he showed up and just talked to students for a couple of hours,” he said. “Mr. Bienstock has a way of expressing his interest in subjects and excitement about history that pulls in professional historians or even

Over the years, Bienstock has brought in many incredible guests for students to hear from, Bienstock said. “Bringing historians into the classroom was really important to me.” Before Steven Spielberg’s movie „Lincoln“ came out, Bienstock brought Tony Kushner, who wrote the screenplay, into his AP class where they held a discussion with James Oakes who wrote “Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865,” he said. “The two of them had this incredible conversation for 45 minutes about how they understood and approached Lincoln.” But some guests hit closer to home for Bienstock. This year for Book Day Bienstock’s step son, James Grimmelmann ‘95, a Cornell Law School professor, presented at the closing assembly. Being both a parent at HM and guest speaker for Bienstock’s Vast Early America class, Nicole Eustace could see that Bienstock cared deeply for the humanities, she said. “He helps his students confront the past in order to understand the present, and shows them that big themes and issues can be understood not only through study of the “great” but also through stories of ordinary lives,” Eustace said.

Special guests are not the only things Bienstock has brought to the school. “I always like bringing in new books, so every year I always make certain I introduce some new perspectives into the curriculum, whether I‘m teaching a 10th grade survey, contemporary US or Vast Early America,” Beinstock said. Bienstock likes to read the magazine Publishers Weekly to keep up with all of the books that are coming out, so he has a sense of what he wants to read, he said. “In some cases, I have developed friendships with publishers, so I‘ll be able to get early copies of some of these books, so then I know whether I want to use some of these in the classroom.”

Bienstock‘s love for history not only inspired outside guests, but his students as well. According to Marc Lerner ‘89, a professor of European history at the University of Mississippi, Bienstock showed him that history could be fun. “I think that part of things made me want to take more classes in history and the career followed from pursuing my interests, which I definitely think Mr. Beinstock encouraged.”

Princeton history professor Meg Jacobs ‘86 also attributes her love for history to Bienstock. As a

Bienstock taught her how to read books as an active learner, she said. “Barry taught me that at age 13, 40 years ago,” Jacobs said in her speech at Bienstock’s retirement party.

Similarly, Bienstock inspired his former student and advisee Ilann Maazel ‘89 to want to study history, he said. “He was always a thoughtful, caring teacher and person who showed genuine interest in all of his students,” Maazel said. “Mr. Bienstock is my last teacher still at Horace Mann, and though I had many wonderful teachers, he was the best.”

Back in the 80s when HM wasn’t especially warm and friendly, Mr. Bienstock created a much more nurturing and mutually respectful classroom environment, Dr. Deborah Kassel ‘84 said. “Mr. Bienstock was not only an outstanding teacher, but also a kind human being. He had compassion for his students, and he listened in a way that made you feel that you had something insightful and original to say.”

That was one of the many reasons Bienstock’s class has produced multiple historians, teachers and journalists, David Leonhardt ‘90 said. At the beginning of each trimester Bienstock would provide his class with a list of books that covered centuries of history and would tell his students to pick one to write a paper about, Leonhardt said. “The next day he would go through the list, book by book, giving a short summary about what the book said. He basically covered centuries of history in forty-five minutes,” he said. “It made it seem like I could become a historian that could write one of these books.”

What made Berenson’s experience in AP US history an incredible class was Bienstock’s vast knowledge of history and ability to engage his students in history. “It‘s inspiring to learn from someone who thinks so deeply and cares so deeply about history, and wants to take the messy clay of Horace Mann students and turn them into potential future historians, and that happens remarkably often,” Berenson said.

Bienstock has a way of engaging his students with their work, Lerner said. “He encouraged students to find what motivated them and that lesson works longer than his finding immediate solutions for us.” Lerner believes that he was able to learn more from Bienstock by watching him teach and connect with the material rather than his making direct statements, he said.

“He’s present,” Kelly wrote. Bienstock is always interested in what students have to say and their work, no matter where he is on campus, he wrote. “In the most thoughtful way possible, he also cultivates an interest in what students are doing outside of his class in an effort to develop relationships that thrive when a student is doing well and are comfortable when a student is struggling and in need of support.”

For Berenson, Bienstock’s refusal to overlook the important contributions of those often left out of historical sources, and his expectations for his students to do the same, revealed how deeply Bienstock cared about people. “He inspired me to better understand part of how instrumental the struggles of Native Americans and Black Americans were to our history, and how often that history was overlooked or misunderstood, which I carry into my tea-