One reporter who recently traveled to Al Shanker’s home for an interview was struck by a curious fact: The man synonymous with school reform in the United States devoted more library shelf space to books on cooking than to those on education.

In fact, cooking was just one of the many pastimes that fascinated Shanker. Among his better-known hobbies were stereos and classical music (he owned hundreds of CDs and thousands of long-playing records), wines, breadmaking, folk art and, of course, shopping. "Al could never say no—he wanted to try everything," says his wife, Eadie Shanker.

AFT vice president Adam Urbanski recalls when he and Shanker were in Prague in the years when communism dominated Eastern Europe, and Shanker insisted on going from one record store to another. An exasperated Urbanski said, "I thought we came here to fight communism, not go shopping," to which Shanker replied, "We’re here to go shopping and fight communism—in that order!"

Shanker frequently visited a Salvation Army store that, for many years, was just a block from the AFT headquarters in Washington, D.C. He once returned from the shop with a floor radio similar to one his family had when he was a child—a collectible that had a particular resonance with him. Living in an anti-Semitic neighborhood as children, "Al grew up painfully isolated," recalls his younger sister, Pearl Harris. "None of the neighbors would let their children play with us. Al survived those years by listening to the family radio. He would play with his little metal toy soldiers for hours. The radio, the soldiers, his books—for years and years, these were Al’s playmates."

Books would remain his companions through life. A voracious reader, Shanker’s desk and homes in New York City and Mamaroneck, N.Y., were filled with papers, newspaper and magazine clippings, reports and, of course, books. "He didn’t have to read every word to get what was going on," says Eadie Shanker. "He could skim, and he had an amazing ability to remember and correlate ideas; he could know where a person was coming from after reading just a few paragraphs."

"My father had a very active mind—he read everything and he remembered everything," says son Adam. "Even to this day he could quote something pretty directly that he read when he was young. He would sometimes read five or six or seven books on one subject."

An audiophile, Shanker was always visiting stereo stores; in addition to his own superb equipment at home and at the office, he loved assembling stereo components for friends and staff, marking ads in magazines with the specific models and best prices. When visiting his home in Mamaroneck a few years ago, AFT research director Jewell Gould found Shanker consulting with a stereo technician, who was balancing a turntable that Shanker was customizing to get the best possible sound. "It was not possible for Al to keep from tinkering with things in an effort to make them better, to push them to their limits," says Gould. "For him, stereo equipment was no exception."

When he took up breadmaking as a way to relax, Shanker threw himself into it with gusto, collecting scores of books and recipes on the topic.

"My father fed my interest in cooking," says son Michael, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and now a chef. He remembers his dad teaching him how to make clarified butter for omelets; later, Michael started cooking for him. Michael, who says he struggled in school, knew that his dad "expected a lot from me...he was worried about me and wanted me to succeed. I went my own way and proved to both my parents that I could do it. I know they were proud of me."

Shanker’s interests in gourmet cooking took amusing turns, at times. Shanker’s eldest son, Carl Sabath, recalls that once, when waiting for Shanker and Eadie to return to their New York City apartment, he decided to make coffee. "The kitchen was filled with these bags of green coffee beans, and my wife and I decided that must be the way some countries did their coffee. So we ground up the beans and put them through the coffee maker."

As they scrambled to clean up the resulting disaster, in walked the Shankers. "We all had a good laugh. Dad got a kick out of the fact that we had tried to use them in their raw state." Shanker, naturally, used the opportunity to explain in detail the properties of the various coffees and how to roast the beans.

Stereos, wine and breadmaking were among the best known of Shanker’s passions, but he also collected fountain pens (working new ones), Panamanian molas and art books, African masks, baskets and other folk art.

"When my Dad was at home, he didn’t particularly like to talk about things that he was doing at work, but he did like to do all these other things," says daughter Jennie, an artist. "A lot of his job was convincing people about the rightness of something. But there were some things that he just couldn’t explain—great wine, a great painting, the great sound of some stereo speakers. He would share it with you, look at you and wait for you to appreciate it."

"Al had so many interests and ‘phases,’" says AFT’s assistant to the president, Bella Rosenberg. "What’s so remarkable is that he was never a dilettante. Whatever he got interested in, he got to know or do well."

During his early teaching days, he and other teachers often worked as camp counselors during the summer. AFT organizing director Phil Kugler, who was a camper at Camp Hillcroft in New York in 1960, first got to know Shanker as his nature counselor. "People talk about Al’s knowledge of stereos, food and wine, but he also knew everything there was to know about salamanders, trees, insects, and things you find in the woods," says Kugler.

Shanker’s interest in nature stemmed from his early days as a Boy Scout, where he first developed his skills in organizing, speaking and teaching, recalls childhood friend Edward Flower. Flower, an attorney, met Shanker at Hebrew school and joined Troop 277 at Shanker’s urging.

"He was a great organizer," says Flower. "Al was the backbone of that troop. I still have the image of parents’ night, and instead of the scout master making the welcoming speech, Al did it."

Shanker also sharpened his people skills in the scouts. "The senior kids in Boy Scouts became the teachers. For the first time, he would deal with kids who were as poor as he was but came from different ethnic backgrounds, had different attitudes toward education. Some were tough; he learned how to deal with them."

Shanker "went as far as he could as a Boy Scout," says Flower. He wanted to be an Eagle Scout, but could not get the swimming or life-saving badges, which were compulsory for Eagle status, he recalls.