Path Dependence: Explaining Our Collective Resistance to

Curricular Innovation
educationthatinspires.ca/2018/05/21/path-dependence-explaining-our-collective-resistance-to-curricular-
innovation/
gillianjudson May 21,
2018

By Tim Waddington and Riley Hill

In case you missed it, there’s a bright and shiny new path being forged in curriculum studies
both here in British Columbia and in several jurisdictions across the developed world.
Premised in student-centric, postmodern and constructivist thought, the notion of Concept-
Centered curriculum and instruction has gained traction in response to immeasurable
swaths of instantaneously accessible knowledge, the ubiquitous personal use of technology
amongst students and resulting de-legitimization of privilege regarding what, heretofore,
were considered unassailable narratives of cultural truth.

Some educators love this new path (already), some don’t understanding it (yet), and some
are proving quite resistant (still). To understand the resisting element – and with due
sympathy – perhaps we will find it helpful to tell an edifying narrative. That, …and
Imaginative Education simply loves good storytelling as a key component of emotionally

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engaging teaching and learning. The story is an old one, coming from the field of sociology
and corporate studies, involving five monkeys locked in an enclosure with a pyramid of
steps or large boulders placed in the center.

Turns out, it’s a pretty regular monkey day, what

with the usual grooming behaviours and the
hearing, seeing and speaking of no evil. But just
then, a banana is lowered on a wire high above
the pyramid of stones, at least until one
industrious anthropoid sees the forbidden fruit
and recollects that bananas hold a certain if
unspecified appeal. Off he goes northward and
the other monkeys soon enough follow until
*wham!* the zoo-keeper unleashes hoses of ice-
cold water on all five monkeys, not unlike in that
terrible scene with Draco Malfoy in the equally
terrible, Planet of the Apes.This scenario is
repeated numerous times, with all the repetition
of Mythic Understanding, so much so that the
monkeys eventually figure out the patterns and
begin to attack any one of their furry number
engaging in individualistic bright ideas. Surely, an
insidious act of self-censure within a disciplinary
society.

Why is it always fruit?

Because the pattern grows so engrained, the substitution in and out of individual monkeys
makes little difference. New monkey, same result. Having participated in the original scene
or not, each will soon continue acting according to group expectations, attacking any
monkey who acts contrary to the mere perception of group norms. Even when all the
original monkeys are long since gone – hopefully to better living situations, we might add –
the norms, expectations of conduct and general modus operandi will carry on unperturbed.
“Why must we ignore that delicious banana?” “Don’t quite know.” “But it’s so ripe!” “That’s just
the way things are.” “Why can’t we go outside?” “Them’s the rules, I guess.” “Why are we still
assigning marks?” “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies.” This is how bureaucracy – schools,
for example – operate. And, this is path dependence, a most useful sort of notion for
explaining any resistance to Concept-Centered Curriculum and Instruction.

Path Dependence as an Example of Concept-Centered

Instruction
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Path dependence is a construct common in the study of economics and history. As in the
monkey sphere, it suggests that the decisions we make today are influenced by the choices
we collectively made yesterday, whether anyone intended for a connection between the two
or not. The concept emphasizes the importance of human decisions in shaping our world
and our inability to predict the consequences of our actions fully. Moreover, it demonstrates
how people act in the world while also taking into account the momentum, or inertia, of
historical and material conditions. Path dependence demonstrates how while we are free to
act and make decisions in the present, we are also tethered both materially and historically
to the decisions and directions afforded by our collective past. We are, in this sense,
continually conditioned to continue the continuous conditioning of our continuous
conditions. The concept explains why we often persist with actions that, looking from the
outside, seem unwarranted, maladaptive and oftentimes, irrational. Looking through the
lens of path dependence, three paradoxical elements emerge: (i) we are free to act and
make choices, (ii) all of our decisions have unintended consequences, and (iii) we are all
more or less bound by history.

Here’s a real-life example. After the Second World War, city planners decided that
Houston would be a suburban city, meaning its citizens would live in detached homes and
rely on personal vehicles for transportation. At the time, this decision made terrific sense.
The economy in post-war America was booming, oil was abundant, and cars were both
cheap and reliable. We had not yet grasped our negative ecological impact on the planet,
and owning a private home and automobile symbolized American freedom and prosperity.

The future seemed bright and, fondly

remembering The Jetsons, without limit. But
then, as time passed, we learned about the
unintended consequences of suburban
communities, in particular, upon the
environment. In the face of climate change
and overconsumption, many residents of
Houston came to realize with a resounding
“Y’all” that it was better for citizens to live in
denser communities, making use of Houston By Day

relatively inexpensive public transportation

powered by renewable electricity. Viewed
through the concept of path dependence, the challenges seem obvious. Houston’s
infrastructure was designed for personal transportation and the sprawl of suburban
housing. The costs of making necessary environmental adjustments to infrastructure are
massive.

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While this does not mean that Houstonians are forever stuck with their cars, pickups and
downtown interstate highways, the situation clearly demonstrates how the cost and viability
of today’s preferred choices, even the possibility of enacting them, are profoundly impacted
by the values and decisions of yesterday. The post-war decisions made to facilitate the
adjustments of returning GIs and foster the growth of young nuclear families continue to
influence today’s policy makers and city
planners, just as the choices made today
will carry unintended consequences,
some of which we cannot even anticipate
at this point, long into the future.

Here’s another example with a different

treatment of path dependence, this time Houston By Night

regarding the legacies of racism. Most

people now consider it a truism that race
is a social construct and there is no substantive congenital difference between one “race”
and another. With this in mind, it’s tempting to think we can just forget about the history of
racial divisions and so, simply move on with life. The problem remains, however, that even if
we sincerely wish to move past these racial divides, we nevertheless made harmful
decisions in the past premised upon a belief in spurious racial hierarchies. For privileged
groups, racial hierarchies meant access to property, status and the institutions that allowed
them to build lives of security and wealth. For oppressed groups, racial hierarchies meant
the denial of all these things. Collectively, we remain accountable for these choices precisely
because they continue to shape the lives of both individuals and whole communities today.
We can, in keeping with our freedom to act and begin anew, make decisions today about
how to deal with the “racialization” of groups, but we are not, and will never be, starting
from scratch. The decisions we make today are intimately bound to the material realities
created by what we chose yesterday. And while we are free to choose whatever we like
going forward, we cannot break our chains, both metaphorical and literal, to the past
without running headlong towards the three-headed Chimera of denial, dissimulation, and
self-delusion.

The Concept of Concept-Centeredness

Concept-Centeredness is easy enough to understand.

At its core, concept-centeredness asks educators to consider concepts, ideas, diagrams, events,
people, values, works of art, etc. as lenses through which students may think about and,
subsequently, inquire about the world and their place in it.

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A previous post here on imaginED, titled “Aristotle and a Leather Jacket”, depicted a re-
reading of S.E. Hinton’s classic novel The Outsiders through the concept of Friendship. There,
we saw how the numerous relationships of the characters fell, more or less neatly, into
three qualities of friendship, specifically as utility, as pleasure, as virtue. We also saw that
such a concept-driven treatment of the novel opens up brand new vistas, hermeneutically
connecting the student to the text, to other texts, the world, their friendships and, most
importantly, themselves.

The temptation, of course, is to claim

something like the following: “Surely,
beginning with an exploration of a
concept as a concept lends itself to
Philosophic kinds of understanding
but less so to earlier Romantic,
Mythic and Somatic forms.”
(Wondering what kinds of
understandings are? Read this
post.) It’s a good question, even if we
did ask it ourselves. (Go us!)

An appropriate response, it seems to

be reasonable to suggest, is to direct our attention to the treatment of what one might
mean by concept, particularly as something less than definitive and solid, but rather
something closer to a tool or a lens which enables thinking, inquiry, learning and the
construction of knowledge. Exploring ‘Dance’ allows us to use rhyme, rhythm and pattern
while ‘Balance’ allows us a metaphor for understanding not only physicality, but also the
categorization of items and a beginning sense of numeracy, … all contained within Mythic
Understanding. ‘Hunger’, ‘Symbiosis’, ‘Infinity’, ‘Culture’ and ‘Courage’ each speak to the
various tools of Romantic Understanding. Greater abstractions such as ‘Classical Liberalism’,
‘Structuralism’, ‘Phagocytosis’, and ‘Casuistry’ can arrive later, with more properly achieved
Philosophic and Ironic Understanding. Considered broadly and with some sympathy,
concepts can themselves become powerful tools for thinking and learning. This is why
Imaginative Education insists that kinds of understanding can be deployed across the
curriculum at every grade level in intellectually rigorous and emotionally honest ways.

Patience, Monkeys! Patience

Changes to curriculum and instruction such as our current shifts in orientation towards
Concept-Centeredness and Inquiry, are necessarily challenging, complex and time-
consuming undertakings. Like the giant tankers and container ships that populate
Vancouver Harbour, curriculum is built of slow-moving vessels that are difficult to turn in
tight waters. Metaphors – whether of ships or of bureaucratic dogmas or of constructivist
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conceptions of knowledge – gain popular acceptance and grow normalized through the
many sedimentations of habit, practical implementation, and reinforcements provided by
the execution of authority. Still, be clear: metaphors they are and as such, reside with you to
enact or further or frustrate.

What we hope to provide here is a

supportive example for how models of
‘new’ curriculum might be set in motion
in ways that are emotionally engaging,
imaginatively interesting, and likely to
support permanent gains in student
learning and the development of mind.
Our best advice – if you’re open to
accepting advice, that is – is to ignore the
monkeys set on throwing shoes, old bits
of chalk, tired lesson plans, and other
more sordid bits and pieces monkeys
are wont to throw when distressed.
Concept-Centeredness, and Concept-Centered Inquiry – coming soon to an Amazon near
you – are likely here to stay with good reasons. An imaginative approach to the deployment
of concepts helps us along some distance.

To venture one last metaphor, the gifts of Imaginative Education are most abundant way out
on the skinny parts of the branch where many monkeys either cannot, or dare not, reach
out. To do so involves a certain portion of risk and danger, because first we need to let go of
the tree trunk, grounded to the earth with its ancient lineage of ideas and legacies of
traditional practice. Those who want or need to cling to the thicker and safer branches are
in no respects either ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ or ‘inferior’. But waaaaay out there on the edge,
growing ripe and sweet in the fulsome sun, the rewards…THE REWARDS TO BE FOUND!!!

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