× CLOSE
 

Beau Henson

Tutor, Classicist, Songwriter

Beau has worked in test prep since 2008, and has guided over 1100 students to higher scores on all kinds of standardized tests. He earned his BA in classical languages from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, his MA in musical theatre performance from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow, and his MA in classics from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he is currently completing his PhD. He has appeared on Jeopardy! and Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but can’t get anyone to agree to form a team for Amazing Race. He loves Queen (their late stuff is underrated), the X-Men (Nightcrawler and Colossus forever), and writing music about ancient history and mythology, as well as trying to convince everyone who will listen to him to learn Latin.

 

…a text I love to teach

I like to teach literary science fiction: Abbott’s Flatland, Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Wells’s The Time Machine, especially. The fantastical ideas in texts like these help spark interest in the bigger ideas about the authors’ societies and anxieties and provide motivation for students to work with concepts they might otherwise find too “hard” or “boring.”

…a favorite place I’ve visited

Scotland as a whole is a wonderful place with two very different major cities–one staid and historical, one exciting and unpredictable–and an absolute ton of natural beauty outside of them.

…eight people living or dead I’d invite to my ideal dinner party

Augustus Caesar, Ovid, Stan Lee, Chris Claremont, Freddie Mercury, J. K. Rowling, Bill Bryson, Amy Poehler

…something I can’t stop thinking about

How we make our own mythologies and when they become something bigger than a story; how bonkers the whole process of learning to wiggle air with my mouth and tongue is, learning exactly how to wiggle that air, and how wiggling that air at the right person at the right time can result in someone passing the salt.