The Grateful Dead’s Evolving American Identity

Offering this course provided the perfect opportunity to apply and refine the “spontaneous pedagogy” praxis that I was developing as a young educator in 2010-2011. On this page you will find:

• A brief course description

• An essay that reflects on the development and application of my spontaneous pedagogy in its most experimental form

• Art work that Zane Russell helped me create for the course

Course Description

This class traced the trajectory of the Grateful Dead’s consistently evolving identity over the course of its 40+ year (in 2011) duration. We examined the influences of diverse aspects of Americana on the Grateful Dead and framed the band as the distinctly American phenomenon that it is. In addition, we examined the ways in which the Grateful Dead and Deadhead culture influenced and continue to influence American pop culture and the larger American culture. To do so we began our study at the band’s origin in 1965 San Francisco and followed them through until the present day.  Staying close to the music, art, and other cultural productions of the group and their fans, we addressed The Dead’s ever expanding identity from local Haight Asbury product, to communal, and eventually on to national, and international levels of acclaim and responsibility (As the Grateful Dead became the highest grossing touring act in America, they simultaneously created and supported nonprofits to conserve the South American rainforests, the oceans, and they funded the Lithuania Olympic basketball team in 1992 and 1996). As the popularity of the group grew, and so did their group of followers, the music, iconography, and mythos also grew. In order to address this constantly mutating, nebulous phenomenon we read scholarly articles written on the band, listened to selections from the Grateful Dead’s expansive catalog, and watched films produced by, or about, the band throughout their career.

Teaching the Grateful Dead and Happening Pedagogy

*A draft of this essay was first presented at the annual gathering of the Grateful Dead Scholars’ Caucus in Albuquerque, NM in February, 2012.

            As all educators do, I spent the first few years in my vocation developing my identity in the classroom. Of course developing one’s pedagogical identity is a lifelong pursuit, but those first few years are especially foundational. I was an M.A. student in the English department at the University of Oklahoma; a place where I was well supported in an excellent department that invested heavily in my pedagogical training. So, as I got my feet under me—and since I am inclined towards experimentation—I began to seek out ways to make my students’ educational experience in my courses unique. At this pivotal juncture, a faculty mentor recommended a book called English Composition as a Happening (2002) by Geoffrey Sirc. In his book Sirc laments the passing of the days when incense was a viable atmosphere-setting pedagogical tool (alas, these were days I never knew). He notes that apparently “smoke is not supposed to be good for disc drives” (1). The metaphor Sirc establishes using incense and disc drives speaks to the main tension he perceives in the field of composition specifically, and in higher education in general: soul searching vs. professionalization, free flowing discourse vs. imposed forms. This is a tension that I was growing more interested in addressing.

            Sirc believes that we have allowed our institutions of education to become too institutionalized, and doing so has factored out the possibility opportunity of a meaningful education for our students beyond professionalization that is being increasingly emphasized within our hallowed sanctuaries of learning. He sees the current academic goal of professionalization as counterproductive to that heartfelt goal of self-actualization. Sirc’s analysis of higher education rang true for me as an M.A. student discovering the lay of the land for myself, and being dissatisfied with the emphasis towards professionalization and away from the humanities and the arts: those areas of study that help students develop their humanity; a crucial aspect of a model of education that seeks to facilitate a meaningful experience of life. To my mind—then, as now—fulfilled, enriched individuals are happier and more successful. As the emphasis in higher education has become disproportionately imbalanced towards professionalization, English composition remains one area of requirement for all students, regardless of their major. That makes composition an important site for students to encounter the type of self-scrutiny and development of critical thinking that the English department provides, which many students might not otherwise receive. So, for Sirc—and for me—a student’s experience of composition is a pivotal opportunity in the development of their humanity as well as their writing skills. If we overly professionalize composition, we might factor out the opportunity for self-actualization that this last resort of the liberal education represents.

            For Sirc, if a teacher can disrupt a student’s conventional thought habits, by whatever means necessary, that teacher has allowed that student an opportunity for transcendence of their current state of being. It follows that a student might organically professionalize themselves as a byproduct of the newfound heightened elegance of thought. Sirc believes that instead of inundating uninterested students with rules and formulas to follow, we, as teachers, should be providing opportunities for cognitive growth. Sirc calls for composition instructors to adopt the role of “the inspired shaman, not the pedestrian businessmen” (74). Sirc’s reconfiguring of the figure of the instructor from vocational trainer to shamanistic spirit guide was very appealing to me.[1]

            Sirc is not alone in his judgment of the uninteresting and thus ineffective classroom procedures of business-style composition courses. Sirc’s 2002 book calls back to Charles Deemer’s late 1960’s pedagogy manifesto of the same title. Deemer’s short piece is instilled with the fiery anti-authoritarian passion of the activist-side of the 60’s counterculture. It also follows the aesthetic of the Postmodern era that birthed it: Deemer presents his argument through a fragmented arrangement of original maxims juxtaposed with quotes on education from respected thinkers of the past and Deemer’s present. These quoted fragments include the likes of Susan Sontag, Archibald MacLeish, Marshall McLuhan, Bertrand Russell, and John Dewey. Here is an exemplary passage of Deemer’s style of maxims mixed with quotation:

And the university should not be a factory molding students. Campuses should not be educational ‘plants,’ despite the current accuracy of popular jargon.

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I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living. (John Dewey, Dewey on Education)

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Neither should English Composition instruct in the pleasant phrasing of nonsense. It should actually instruct in nothing, in the sense that a "teacher" reveals and a class digests. What does a "teacher" know? He is merely human.

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I believe finally, that education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same thing. (John Dewey, Dewey on Education). (Deemer)

In this example the weight of Deemer’s argument is delivered not through his original declarations, but in their relation to Dewey’s quotations. Deemer draws readers to Dewey’s conclusion that education should be process based, not product based. While reading Deemer, I had my own running juxtaposition: I was understanding him through the Grateful Dead. In addition to the similarities in Deemer and The Dead’s response to their specific countercultural milieu—consider the electric exploratory quality of the Grateful Dead’s 1967 jams—The Dead exemplify a process-based ethos in their music. The best musical improvisations are equally as much about the final destination as they are about the course navigated to reach it. And the adventure, the excitement of the journey strengthens the importance of that destination. Deemer’s call for process-based pedagogy reads, to me, as a pedagogical analogue to the musical ethos of the Grateful Dead.

            Deemer concludes his manifesto (which was largely unheeded, by the way) in the place where Sirc begins his book. Deemer calls for the field of composition to remodel itself on the Happening. A Happening is a performance art exhibition that blurs the lines between performer and audience member. They tend to be non-linear and multi-modal. Frequently, aspects of Happenings are planned in advance but not specifics. The goal of the Happening is to achieve insight in the spontaneous moment that they afford. The hope is that a Happening might interrupt the monotonous decorum of a pre-scheduled daily routine to allow for the surfacing of the cosmic, organic, organizing principle: synchronicity. Synchronicities are often punctuated with epiphanies, and one epiphany can teach a student a lesson that will stick with them for a lifetime. For anyone who has attended a Grateful Dead show, the similarities between Happenings and a show are striking. Again, Happenings, Deemer, and The Dead were all birthed out of the same countercultural primordial ooze of late sixties cultural heterogeneity.

            So, the question for me became: how can we incorporate these two forms—Happenings and a college education of the current style—that seem to be very much at odds with one another? I can only answer for myself. At the point in time that I encountered Sirc and Deemer, I was a few years into my vocation: a lifelong commitment to higher education. I had received unparalleled pedagogical training from one of the foremost composition programs in the country. I had the support of excellent mentors and colleagues, I had internalized the lessons I had learned about teaching, and I was interested in developing my own praxis—a meld of theory and practice—to match my particular ethos. I had learned from my stellar mentors in pedagogy that the most successful educators are the ones who match their praxis to their ethos, so that their lessons to their students ring true and are reinforced by their own embodiment.

            Personally—and in my studies of art and literature—I was very interested in improvisation, gravitating towards the likes of Thelonious Monk, Jackson Pollock, Jack Kerouac, and, of course, The Grateful Dead. I had hit the road myself, to see the country—and to see the Dead (small “t”)—and the improvisatory, transitional nature of a road trip paralleled for me the same quality found in an improvisational performance, which also reflected the larger perpetually shifting, improvisatory journey through life. Philosophically and spiritually I was drawn towards non-linear and paradoxical models of thought such as Taoism and Buddhism that teach the malleability of perception and the necessity of change. And then, at the moment that all of these aggregates coalesced—pedagogical, personal, professional, philosophical, spiritual—a faculty mentor introduced me to Sirc’s book. That was a fine moment of synchronicity. The idea hit me like a lightning bolt: “spontaneous pedagogy.”

            My first undertaking in spontaneous pedagogy came at this point, and I developed a nebulous composition unit on definitional arguments. The topic was “The Nature of Reality.” Three weeks, no pre-orchestrated lesson plans, and one question designated as an entry point into our fluid class: what is real? The assignment itself was to choose a mythological creature, and then argue whether it is real or not, supporting that claim with a personalized set of criteria developed in class.[2] We spent three weeks in organic class discussions, break-out groups, and individual journaling to develop a multifaceted criteria set that the students would then apply to their creature to define it as real or not… I can’t say real or imaginary, because many such sets included the imaginary as real. No two criteria sets were ever the same. No two papers were the same either. Everyone learned how to write a definitional argument, and also learned about themselves and where they personally draw the line between what is real and what is not. No one ever plagiarized on this assignment. How could they? In this unit we met the prescribed outcomes of the program and students had a meaningful introspective experience while having a very good time. Precisely because the students enjoyed the process and assignment, the papers produced were often excellent. As you might assume, I instantly realized the value and possibility of such an approach. This was my first experience with spontaneous pedagogy, but my method would more fully develop in the Grateful Dead classroom, which I saw as the exemplary opportunity to conduct an entire class improvisationally.

            Before continuing, I will add that a widespread adoption of spontaneous pedagogy in composition strategy seems unlikely. Happenings are difficult to plan, especially in advance, and especially for those unused to planning them, or rather, facilitating them. Many are rightly hesitant to enter a classroom without a net, so to speak. While the potential outcomes of such an improvisatory method are synchronicities that lead to lasting moments of insight, inspiration, and individuation, the instructor shoulders a much greater risk of falling on their face. The Dead were certainly aware of this risk in their own approach to improvisation. Also, happening pedagogy is rather unsustainable. As Deemer writes, “Happenings happen; they are not passed down from one to another. Spontaneity is essential. Each Teacher must inspire his own happening” (18). Each happening is unique, so extra effort is required of the instructor to set the stage, and remain fluid in their attitude, understanding that no two happenings will take the same course. No two happenings are the same, and no two Dead shows are the same, but when that insight is extrapolated to the composition classroom, the potential chore of reinventing the wheel for every class is inescapably apparent. That said, Deemer provides a loose set of characteristics and lists the potential boons of undertaking such a perilous endeavor:

Where Deemer ends his piece on this heady, open note, Sirc expounds some of the possible methodologies available to the teacher. Unfortunately, such an elucidation presents certain pitfalls: by describing/prescribing methods, Sirc endangers Deemer’s initial point that happenings must be unique experiences that extend from the unique alignment of current conditions. As potential precedents for developing our own styles, Sirc proposes the methods of artists from Marcel Duchamp to Jackson Pollock to Tupac. To this list I might add others from my lifetime of interest in improvisatory art: perhaps most notably, the Grateful Dead. So, after my initial experiments with spontaneous pedagogy went so well in the definitional argument unit, I sought out a more extended opportunity for the application of my developing praxis. I immediately realized the potential of offering an intersession class on the Grateful Dead; a subject where the content of the class would match the spontaneous method of teaching it.

            I had some previous experience with intersession classes held in the three weeks between semesters.[3] Although the duration is abbreviated, in-class time during intersession is the same 80 hours taught during a semester. So, intersession courses are both short-form and long-form. The experience of a class can be intensive. In-class time on a given day is between three and a half, and four and a half hours: a Grateful Dead conducive time allotment. I tried to plan as little as possible beforehand. My intent for day one was to show The Grateful Dead Movie (1977)—a document of the Dead experience as a Happening for its focus on the participation of fans, crew, promoters, etc. in addition to the band members—and provide the class with an overview of the American counterculture from Emerson to Kesey. I planned to wrap up the course with The End of The Road (2005) on Day 15. In between, I had faith that the course would dictate its own course. And it did. It was a little unnerving to step in front of a room with 60 people (45 enrolled and 15 or so sitting in) with so little of our course’s path pre-charted, but the freedom was also exhilarating, and I was very well prepared.

            Though my planning for the course was minimal, my preparation was extensive. A falsity about improvisation is that it requires less preparation. I found this out firsthand. Having taught both types of courses, I can confidently attest to the fact that conducting a spontaneous course requires significantly more preparation than one that plots out the lessons ahead of time. The type of preparation for a spontaneous course is different, and more continual. Instead of focusing on creating precise lessons before the course, and prepping for those lessons, I researched the subject in general and in depth. As the class ensued, and nodes of interest arose out of the matrix of our listening/interpreting sessions, contextual lessons, and class discussions, I would then focus more thoroughly on those loci. If a topic was raised with which I was unfamiliar, that became my homework before the next class meeting.

            I brought about 120 gbs of Grateful Dead music to class each day and plugged it directly into the powerful sound system in our classroom: a medium capacity, wainscoted auditorium within Price Hall, home to OU’s business school. At the start of each class I would play a “warm-up” tune (chosen ahead of time) and ask the students to write independently. At the end of the song, I would ask about their writing, and ask for suggestions of where we would like to go that day. Each class was woven together out of guided listening sessions (which organized themselves), impromptu class discussions, some small group conversations, and rather on-the-spot mini lectures covering every possible topic: from the benefit of two drummers and Garcia’s explanation of ouroboros to Hugh Hefner, to philosophical and artistic precedents and heirs to the Dead, to understanding the difference between hierarchical and associative jamming, to literary allusions in Grateful Dead lyrics. The topics covered were wide ranging and diverse. Literary analysis, cultural context, and analysis of musical form and approach took center stage in many of our conversations.

            I did not assign traditional assignments, outside of a few short response papers. But, in the absence of prescribed homework, I found that the students created assignments for themselves. This amazed me. I brought a small library of scholarly and historical works focusing on The Dead and students checked them out day by day. Please note, these were NOT assigned readings, but readings that the students assigned to themselves. No one student read all of them, but each found their own interests and pursued them throughout the class. Of their own accord, in the absence of prescribed homework, students wrote papers, created multimedia research and art projects, and gave presentations about the material that they researched. These projects were not assigned in class. Again, because this is so unique in my experience as an educator, it bears repeating that in the absence of assignments, the students in this class created their own assignments and produced their own projects. I have never experienced anything like it, and probably will not again.

            Throughout the course the students’ thirst for more knowledge was palpable. They devoured historical and scholarly works on The Dead, they stayed late to listen/ watch/analyze sprawling half hour jams that I started five minutes before class ended, they poured their energy into their projects and presented masterfully on diverse topics utilizing eclectic methods, each being indicative of that students’ interests and personality. The best part is that all of this was unrequired. They asked great questions and we had many lofty conversations. Many days they brought in friends, and some days we had as many guests as students. Some people that never enrolled came to every class session. In truth, the class transcended its classification as three hours of upper division elective credit. The students showed up to learn and to be pushed—and push themselves—forward and upward. The experience of this class galvanized us as a group in a way that is atypical in my experience as an educator. A disproportionately high number of these students have kept in touch with me in the intervening years. I’ve since run into these same students at Furthur and Dead & Company shows. I’ve gone to see their own bands perform, some of these bands began after class ended and incorporate what they learned of the Dead into their jam techniques. I keep in pretty regular touch with some of them, and I even directed the course online through Facebook chat with a student that was out of the country for our class meetings (not for credit).

            Two days after the class ended, 40 of the 45 students were set to attend a music festival: that cultural mainstay in the new millennium that was spawned from the Grateful Dead themselves. Intriguingly, a prominent Grateful Dead recreation act—Dark Star Orchestra—was scheduled for a late-night show at this particular festival. But unfortunately, Dark Star Orchestra was scheduled at the same time as Bassnectar and Pretty Lights: two very popular acts among these students. Throughout the class I would jokingly suggest that the students attend the Dark Star Orchestra show instead of Bassnectar and Pretty lights. Our banter on this subject became a sort of refrain punctuating the end of our class sessions. They agreed, but I was skeptical. Of course, they were not liable to me in anyway. Class was over, grades were entered, they were obligated to me only in good faith. Interestingly, that night I received a photo text of about twenty of them at the Dark Star Orchestra show. I’ve never had a happier teaching moment.

            I’d like to leave you with an anecdote that speaks to me of the importance that such a spontaneous class held to a single student in the grand scheme of the over-institutionalized education monolith against which Deemer and Sirc write. Later in the year after the class [2011] I happened upon a student in public with their family. Their older brother pulled me aside and told me that this student had been barely maintaining a 2.0 average before the Grateful Dead class and had been battling with their parents about dropping out (all news to me). The brother thanked me because, after the Grateful Dead class, this semester, the student had straight A’s, no longer wanted to drop out, and had rekindled his interest in the passion he came to OU to pursue in the first place: cinematography. This one instance is indicative of several more similar conversations I have had with both students and their families. These conversations are a testament to the importance of the epiphany—produced of the spontaneous moment—in the individual student’s overly professionalized path through higher education. The importance of self-actualization is practical and directly benefits a student’s ability to excel in the rest of their studies, and onward throughout their lifetime. In this most radical application of my spontaneous pedagogy my students and I discovered its transformative potential. As the Grateful Dead is much more than the sum of its parts, and so too was our experience of our Grateful Dead class. That is-ness or thus-ness remains ineffable, indescribable, but the experience of it, and the memory of that experience remains with me and with the students. When I reconnect with them—as happens often—our conversation includes both the knowledge that they gained in the class, and have build on since, and the experience of the ineffable that the spontaneous methodology afforded them.

[1] “Shaman” is a culturally specific word for an indigenous spiritual healer in Siberian tribes. Mircea Eliade adopted the term and applied it to other indigenous spiritual healers worldwide whose practices exhibited similar characteristics in his study, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1951). The adjectival “shamanic” refers specifically to these indigenous shamans embedded in a lifestyle and tradition of Shamanism. I use the adjectival “Shamanistic” to denote a degree of separation: to describe a practice that evokes an affinity with, but is not related to indigenous Shamanism.

[2] This idea came from a previous discussion with a group of students about whether or not jackalopes are real. Turns out, they are.

[3] I had taught intersession courses on The Beatles, and Star Wars & mythology several times. All were great experiences, but both of these courses were more conventional, structured classes.

Works Cited

Deemer, Charles. “English Composition as a Happening.” College English, vol. 29, no. 2, 1967, pp. 121–126. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/374049. Accessed 16 July 2020.

Sirc, Geoffrey. English Composition As a Happening. Utah State UP, 2002.