(1908-1999)
Fannie Shaftel, Professor Emerita of Education, died on March 21, 1999, at age 90. She had been an active member of the Stanford faculty for twenty-seven years until her retirement in 1974.
After studying at the university in her home city, UCLA, Fannie embarked on six years of teaching in the elementary grades in nearby Pasadena. Then with her husband George Shaftel she set out for New York, where she earned a Master's degree at Teachers College, Columbia University. They returned to Pasadena where Fannie became the elementary curriculum coordinator in that progressive school system, working with 300 elementary teachers in 24 schools. "I was 28 years old, had all the answers, and learned by making many mistakes," she remembered years later in a talk on the occasion of her retirement from Stanford. One of us (Siegel) was among the many enrolled in the Pasadena schools who benefited from Shaftel's leadership in that post, which she held for eight years.
She came to Stanford for further graduate study. Once she received the Ed.D. degree in 1948 she was immediately recruited for the faculty
Fannie was widely appreciated as a great teacher. An excellent lecturer, she chose to rely on class discussions and exchange of ideas rather than on lecturing. An active and careful listener, she pioneered non-traditional approaches to the classroom at a university where typically the professors spoke and the students sat quietly taking notes and occasionally asking questions for clarification and amplification.
Fannie specialized in social studies in the elementary and secondary curricula. Her dissertation on the use of role-playing in the teaching of American ideals provided a basis for her work at Stanford. Her particular interest was in guiding youngsters to grasp the different viewpoints of other people, and even to sympathize with those views. Although most adults understand that where you stand depends on where you sit, for youngsters it can be a major insight, a cognitive advance, to comprehend that other people do not hold the same opinions and values that they hold themselves. Fannie's teaching demonstrated forcefully that other people's values are linked to the roles they play in the social order.
In role-playing, a technique pioneered by the Austrian psychotherapist Jacob Moreno, each youngster is assigned an identity different from his or her own. The leader sketches a situation in which the players are assigned to interact with others who are also play-acting in novel roles. Role-playing gives the participants freedom to try out different solutions to the conflicts they encounter. Unsuccessful solutions may be discarded and replaced, since the situation is make-believe. One former graduate student, a white woman, recalled "In one class she had an African American man take the role of a white woman and I took the role of an African American man in a conflict situation. That was an experience not to be forgotten." Professor Shaftel challenged her students to listen to others. From the vivid experiences she set up, students learned how it feels to walk in another's moccasins.
In their classic book on Role-Playing for Social Values, published in 1967, Fannie and George Shaftel offer curricular materials that simulate typical life situations of children and early adolescents. These end with dilemmas to be solved by the children. When these stories are explored through role-playing, the child is enabled to make a trial decision, and then to confront the consequences of that decision to self and others, and to analyze the values underlying the behavior. For example, in one situation the child must choose between loyalty to the group and honesty. Through practice and analysis of their own decisions, children are educated for ethical behavior, for integrity, and for citizenship.
Fannie and George also developed documentary films, filmstrips, and other curricular materials for classroom use in role-playing. She demonstrated their techniques at countless conferences for teachers and school administrators. The National Conference of Christians and Jews sponsored publication of some of these teaching materials.
Encounters and transactions among persons of different ethnic identities were a central topic in the social sciences in Dr. Shaftel's era. Her work centered on bringing this topic into the public school curriculum in a manner comprehensible to children and youth.
In 1973 Fannie was a member of a select team of educators from the University of Wisconsin and Stanford sponsored by the World Bank and the Fulbright Commission to study and make recommendations for the reform of aspects of education in Spain at all levels. One of us (Gross) was also on this team. Joined by a group of Spanish educators and administrative officials, some of whom had studied earlier at Stanford, their report was submitted to the Spanish Ministry of Education for initial implementation in the province of Galicia, one of the most impoverished areas in Spain.
For many years Fannie served as Director of the Stanford Workshop on Intergroup Relations. She was widely sought as a consultant to school districts, the Peace Corps, and the National Education Association. She was co-editor of Effective Thinking in the Social Studies, the 1967 yearbook of the National Council for the Social Studies. Fannie chaired the Commission on International Understanding, a division of the National Education Association. Dean Coladarci appointed her in 1972 to a task force to consider how the School of Education could function more effectively in the education of minority students. In 1969, the School of Education inaugurated an award for excellence in teaching. Fannie was the first recipient. She also received UCLA's Corinne A. Seeds Award in 1976, for significant contributions to young people in the field of education.
A person of firm convictions with a strong commitment to social justice, Fannie was a highly sociable woman. She and George frequently hosted her students and colleagues at their home. She developed longstanding and supportive relations with many of her graduate students. Some of them traveled considerable distances to attend the memorial gathering for Professor Shaftel on May 29, 1999. In their tributes, her graduate students, many now leading professionals, used words like creative, gracious, warm, indomitable, compassionate, persevering, skilled, devoted, and involved. These words are consistent with the way we remember Fannie.
The Shaftels' son David was four years old when his mother began graduate study here. He later graduated from Stanford, then earned a law degree at Boalt Hall. He and his wife Harriet make their home in Anchorage, Alaska. Of their three children Douglas, Matthew, and Rebecca--one is a 1998 Stanford graduate and another is currently a senior. Harriet Shaftel remembers her mother-in-law as generous, easygoing, loving, helpful, accepting, and "the best listener in the world."
Upon her retirement from Stanford, Fannie and George moved to Honolulu, returning to their Ladera home each year for a few months. Fannie's daily routine included a swim in the ocean off the Oahu shore. She worked with the Bishop Museum as an associate for the Hawaiian Homestead Project, and with the state Department of Education as a consultant on the Windward District Guidance Project. As well, she served on the Board of Directors of the Hanahauli School. A few years ago the Shaftels moved back from Honolulu to Ladera to remain. This brought them close to her sister Dorothy Nadaner and brother-in-law Hugo Nadaner, as well as to their good friend Agnes Robinson. Fannie died this year after a brief stay at a skilled nursing facility near their home.
On behalf of all her Stanford colleagues and students, we extend our sincere sympathy to Fannie's family. We remind them of the esteem and lasting respect in which she was held by her many friends at Stanford. We are grateful indeed to have known this marvelous, vital woman, and to have learned from her
Alberta E. Siegel,
Chair
Richard E. Gross
John D. Krumboltz