A few choice nuggets from Jay Lemke's 2000 article, Across the Scales of Time: Artifacts, Activities, and Social Meanings in Ecological Systems:

“We might say that it is a semiotic articulation of a person’s evaluative stance toward interactions.” (p. 283)

“Our ontogeny recapitulates their phylogeny, up to a point. But only up to a point, and less so as developmental pathways come to be guided more by social interaction and culture-specific semiotic information supplied after birth.” (p. 284) ← Lemke probably won a bet with this one, “I’ll bet you can’t sneak ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’ into a peer reviewed journal article.”

“...even take a reflective perspective in the activity and see our own role in it; that is, we can frame a separated “me” from the viewpoint of this new dynamical “I.” Reflexivity is itself an instance of heterochrony.” (p. 285)

“Traditional macrosociology has resorted, after the manner of Latour’s “centers of calculation,” to assembling statistical data and to recognizing that it does so in a positioned way.” (p. 288).

Should anyone still be ignorant as to the reason of the perpetual divide between educational researcher and education practitioner?  

I’d be hard pressed to find a single classroom teacher that would make it through the first two pages.  Consequently, I’ll summarize the entire piece for the layman before proceeding:

The human experience exists of multiple and intertwined systems which interact over differing timescales.  

Done.  And, you're welcome. 

The idea to consider time scales across ecosocial systems is an extension - or variation on the work of Karl Weick presented in his piece, Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled systems, published in 1979.  Lemke, however, approaches the loose coupling of systems from a chronological perspective rather than from an organizational one.  The end result is the same:  Education is complex and there is no way - seemingly - to be able to anticipate or account for all interactions.  Lemke (2010) states, “We cannot study such a system from more than a few of the many viewpoints within it, and we honestly do not expect all these viewpoints to fit consistently together.” (p. 288) whereas Weick asserts, “Loosely coupled worlds do not look as if they would provide an individual many resources for sense making…” (p. 13) which is to say that indirect parts of a system are extremely challenging to understand.  

The adiabatic principle and heterochrony are fancy ways of communicating something that most educators who have been in the classroom for any significant period of time understand instinctively: Sometimes the things we do in the short term have little to no consequence on the long term (adiabatic principle), and sometimes long-time established (or large scale) issues have immediate impact on the short-term (heterochrony).  An example to the former would be an explanation or instruction given by a teacher which - for whatever reason - does not result in consequential learning by a student, and in the former a large system reform which requires changes in pedagogy.

The application to the educator is that one must seek awareness of both the small and short scale events as well as the large and longer term events and consider their impact on the learning of an individual.  Simultaneously, the educator must also consider how these events act in systems - both as parts of smaller systems themselves, but also as parts of larger systems.   In the case of the classroom teacher, the chief concerns are the events and systems operating most directly on the student.  

With my own PoP, the aforementioned example of heterochrony is apt.   The NGSS is a large scale reform, expected to have both far-reaching and long-term consequences.  The standards, themselves, though are such that adherence to the intent of the NGSS has immediate consequence for pedagogy (heterochrony).   Which is the entire reason why it is a problem in the first place:  while most educators have no problem with the long-scale shift towards inquiry based teaching, more concept-based and skills-based learning and assessment, in the short-term, they are faced with significant challenges to what they are already doing in the classroom.

Lemke, J. L. (2000). Across the scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meaning in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7(4), 273-290.

​Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative science quarterly, 1-19.

Consequently, any change seen in student performance data over the course of one year may very well be the result of cultural, attitude, or other shifts within the environment, not necessary a direct result of a curricular change.  To gauge the overall value of a curricular change, one would have examine students pre- and post- k-12 schooling - a period of at least 12 years - and would also need to have a control group of ‘old curriculum’ students assessed in the same time period.

Sadly - as many teachers would be quick to tell you - educational reforms tend, themselves, to have a lifespan shorter than 12 years.  Those ideas which were at once seen to be the next greatest idea in improving standards, personalizing learning, incorporating technology, and increasing academic achievement are quickly replaced by the next best idea.  To the educator, it seems as though a few basic ideas have been recirculated and regurgitated with new vocabulary every so many years, as the next generation of doctorates and educational researchers find their voice.

This vicious cycle stemming from the mismatch of the 12 or 13 year education span of k-12 students, and the successions of repackaged and regurgitated education reforms, speaks at once to both the challenges of chronology in education as well as the systems nature of education.  Indeed, education an endeavor which must consider both the time spans upon which it exists, and also the multitude of systems in which it is intertwined.    ​​

A - very - brief summary of Paul Cillier's article, Boundaries, Hierarchies and Networks in Complex Systems (2001), and a connection to wicked problems....

In their article, Inescapable Wickedity (2014) education researchers Jordan, Kleinsasser, and Roe might present the problems of education as, among other things, those which are difficult define and have no clear right or wrong answers.  To large extent, the challenges of wickedity are artifacts of the complex system in which educational systems operate and interact with.  These are ideas are further articulated in Cillier’s Boundaries, Hierarchies and Networks in Complex Systems (2001).   Cilliers describes how the various boundaries a which operate between systems are both ambiguous and shifting.  He questions the notion that traditional methods of examining flat hierarchies, network interactions and non-linearity as particularly conducive to developing a theory of complex organizations.

Cilliers, P. (2001). Boundaries, hierarchies and networks in complex systems. International Journal of Innovation Management, 5(2),135–147.

Adding to the complexity of educational systems created by the degrees of coupling within organizations and structure is the inherently human-centered and social nature of education.  Educators are dealing with human beings who are emotional and social creatures who often do not respond in logical or consistent fashion to stimuli. Consequently, where humans are involved, the solution to a problem in one scenario may very well prove to be inconsequential or even detrimental in another.

There really are no true boundaries to the educational system.  As with anything, the further one moves from the nucleus of activity, the less direct the influence on the activity itself.  In the case of educational systems, one might consider the nucleus of activity as the classroom.  Yet, the classroom activity is influenced by building level, district, state and federal level actors.  As well, the general trends of society and cultures, events of the world, and technology affect what happens in the classroom as well.  

A well-respected mentor once told me that the most challenging decisions he has to make as a Head of School are the ones where multiple solutions seem to be good.  This idea came to mind frequently as I read recently read through a part of Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber's 1973 work, Dilemma's in a General Theory of Planning. As Educators, we are frequently dealing with issues of a social nature where, because of the great diversity in human experience, solutions to problems are almost impossible to develop consensus around.  It seems that every problem can be defined multiple ways and every solution to every problem is like by some people and disliked by others.  Further,  because solutions to problems almost invariably require systems change -  where the end result and effects of a decision are often not immediate -  there is inherently a degree of speculation, rather than assured outcome. Indeed, as Rittel and Webber  illustrate, even defining the problems clearly in the first place is challenging.  I couldn't help but laugh at the final sentence of the passage I read, which lays claim that the most wicked problem of all is that such problems themselves are,  in fact,  wicked.
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As a science educator I can well understand the distinction the authors were trying to make between the sorts of well-defined  problems dealt with by those in the 'hard' sciences and those who are trying to develop solutions to societal conditions.  In science the ultimate goal is to arrive at a conclusion which can be tested and evaluated under very strict conditions by other individuals; it is a given that in doing a science experiment -  or for that matter working in fields like structural engineering where one is dealing with the laws of physics rather than the social realm -  there are very clear parameters in which one works, and feedback loops can be largely eliminated.  In contrast, in issues of a social nature there are a nearly limitless number of variables, each interconnected, that in trying to adjust or change any, one inevitably produces changes - sometimes foreseen, but often not - in another.  

Education is, indeed, filled with wicked problems. 

References:
Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), 155-169