Raissa Landor Obituary

Raissa Landor, retired English and Great Books teacher at New Trier High School in Winnetka, IL., passed away on March 9, 2020 after a long illness.

The daughter of Eleanor Landor, a clinical social worker, and Ronald Landor, a public librarian, Raissa grew up in Berkeley, California, and graduated from Berkeley High School. She went on to earn a B. A. degree in English Literature from UC Berkeley and a master’s degree in English literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lived through and to some extent was active in the political protest movements of the 1960s. At the same time, she was strongly influenced by her father and her formal education to study the great works of philosophy, literature, and political and social thought, as a means towards acquiring a liberal education. During this period, she did a lot of traveling, including to England, Italy, France, and the former Soviet Union (on a grant promoting dialog).

After graduating from UWM, she taught in the inner city of Chicago before being hired by New Trier Township High School in 1969. Early in her teaching career she took a class from the Great Books Foundation in Chicago, which introduced her to a method ("Socratic") of teaching the classics based on discussion rather than lecture; the teacher’s role was to ask probing questions and guide the discussion. Armed with that training and Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book, she single-handedly started the Great Books program at New Trier, which she taught to many generations of New Trier students over nearly four decades. Her students included such future notables as Chris Cox, chief product officer at Facebook; actor Rainn Wilson, who devoted a podcast of Metaphysical Milkshake (Who’s Your Guru?) to his former teacher; Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, eminent bioethicist and Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania; and the playwright Sarah Ruhl.

Such was Raissa’s dedication to the study and teaching of the Great Books that while a teacher at New Trier she spent four summers earning a Master’s in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe, which uses the Socratic method to teach classic works in literature, philosophy, science, etc.

Raissa’s approach to teaching and inquiry was a favorite among students and other teachers whom she trained in the Socratic method. In her free time, she led other discussion groups such as a medical ethics seminar based on literary writings, for doctors at Evanston hospital, and a seminar-based discussion class with first graders at Dawes Elementary School in Evanston, plus other book discussion groups with a variety of participants. After her retirement from New Trier, for nearly a decade she taught Great Books and Film Studies at Wilbur Wright College in Chicago until illness forced her to give that up.

Even in full retirement Raissa cultivated her lifelong love of books, and toward the end of her life, she was often to be found deep in a Dickens novel or another great work of literature. She loved to attend plays, films, and art exhibits, and to discuss them afterwards with family and friends. Her house was always filled with lively conversation. She had frequent guests whom she entertained generously, and always welcomed people who just stopped by for tea and conversation. As well as having serious conversations, she loved to laugh. She made everyone who knew her feel good in her company. She was a doting mother, aunt, and grandmother, and a supportive sister. She raised her adopted daughters as a single mom, and to the end their love for her and hers for them was incomparable.

In addition to devoted students with whom she stayed in touch over the years, she leaves a large, close-knit family and a circle of close friends in the U.S. and abroad. She is survived by her two daughters, Rebecca Landor, and Sarah Muñoz (Raymond Muñoz) ; her granddaughter, Ofelia Muñoz; two brothers, Blake Landor (Lyn Straka) and Barth Landor (Heather Antti); three sisters, Talitha Sanders (Ellen Seavey Martin), Regina Landor (Billy Woodward), and Amiel Landor; three nieces, Mikalina Rabinsky (Alex Rabinsky), Shoshana Sanders (Owen Thompson), and Cecilia Landor; three nephews, Lyd Landor, and Ethan and Gabriel Woodward; three grand-nieces, Rafaeli and Chaviva Thompson, and Olive Rabinsky; one grand-nephew, Noah Rabinsky; and four first cousins, David Rade (Olivia Maciel), Debra Rade , Jonathan Velk (Kimberly Velk), and David Velk (Rita Garcia).

Space for family condolences or tributes to Raissa Landor is offered below. The family requests contributions to Doctors without Borders in lieu of flowers.