Like Jerry Garcia, Think "Paradoxically"

So, what does a recent article in The New Yorker on the Grateful Dead have to do with the way we teach our children? I should say right off the bat that I am not, and have never been, a Deadhead.  Although my freshman dorm had the omnipresent smell of patchouli, and my roommate listened to the Dead literally night and day, I just could never get into their music.  Even after I married someone who had followed the Dead on tour, and our beloved rabbi wore Jerry Garcia ties to services and gave a sermon about the lead singer of the band after his death, I never became a fan.

However, even though I didn’t particularly like Garcia’s music, I still respected his talent.  Consequently, I read this article by Nick Paumgarten with mild interest but certainly not overwhelming excitement.  However, the more I read, the more intriguing I found the piece, particularly for its relevance to my role as an educator.  Midway through, Paumgarten quotes Phil Lesh, former bassist for the Dead: “Jerry had one of the most beautiful minds I’ve ever known.  He would make connections between disparate thoughts and make them fit in harmonious ways.  And his music was a lot like that also. It was paradoxical.” 

Lesh does not say that Garcia was a technically perfect musician, but in discussing Garcia’s genius, Lesh points to his eclectic taste in music and his ability to merge different styles into one inclusive body of work.  It was his refusal to be pigeonholed in his influences and his ability to create something entirely new that made Garcia unique. 
In an era of increasing specialization, we need to encourage this same willingness in our students to keep an open mind, to explore different avenues, and to synthesize potentially discordant elements with the intention of creating something entirely new for themselves, that they never before have thought possible.  The perception that a single-minded focus early on will benefit our children is hard to combat.  Just look at the many young athletes who stop playing a variety of sports because they believe that they must choose one; the three-sport varsity athlete seems to be headed toward extinction. Similarly, some students seem to decide somewhere along the way that they are either humanities or math/science people and often close themselves off from learning opportunities that could have enriched them in a much greater way. 

I revel in the fact that so many of our Bosque students play on sports teams, perform in theater or music programs, do well in their classes, and serve as active members in their communities.  In a world of single-mindedness, they are learning to be Renaissance people. As a result, they are more well-rounded, they take a broader view of their world, and they are more creative because they pull from many areas of interest rather than being immersed in just one.  Their decision-making skills are rich because they have looked at situations from different perspectives and are willing to consider alternative ways of solving problems. 

We need to teach our students that, like Jerry Garcia, they should think “paradoxically.”  They should relish contradictions and find ways to synthesize things that don’t seem to fit together. They should pursue ideas that seem mutually exclusive and attempt to create bridges between them. 

Maybe not all of our students will become world famous guitarists or songwriters, but if we teach them to think like Jerry Garcia, they may become happy, creative adults with the capacity to enjoy life to its fullest.  And they may even have a flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream named for them!