Episode 103: Unpopular Opinions Part 2 with Guests

We keep our unpopular opinions rolling with a hard line on what counts as real intervention, a critique of rigid pacing guides, and a push for repair after conflict instead of removal without follow-up. We argue for qualified support where it matters most and for classroom systems that protect both joy and high expectations. 

• Math intervention delivered by certified teachers as the baseline for MTSS and RTI 
• Computer programs and paraprofessionals as extra practice rather than true intervention 
• Prioritizing scarce staff through smarter scheduling and role shifts 
• Inflexible pacing guides reducing responsive, student-centered instruction 
• Balancing teacher autonomy with grade-level expectations and pacing guardrails 
• Repair conversations after classroom removal as a nonnegotiable SEL practice 
• Connection over compliance so students feel safe and seen across all classes 

If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. 

For resources and updates, visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome to the Minimalist Educator podcast, where the focus is on a less is more approach to education. Join your hosts, Christine Arnold and Tammy Musiowski, authors of The Minimalist Teacher and your school leadership edit, a minimalist approach to rethinking your school ecosystem, each week as they explore practical ways to simplify your work, sharpen your focus, and amplify what matters most so you can teach and lead with greater clarity, purpose, and joy.

SPEAKER_07 0:47

Welcome back for part two of our unpopular opinions episode. If you haven't listened to part one yet, please go back and listen to that first. If you already have listened to that, you'll know that we were right in the middle of our conversation about our unpopular opinions in education. We're gonna pick things up right where we left off, which was Naomi jumping in with her unpopular opinion on math. So in this episode, we have more opinions, more discussion, and maybe a few things that'll make us rethink what we thought we knew about education. So please enjoy part two.

Who Should Deliver Intervention

SPEAKER_03 1:42

And when I do math intervention and MTSS professional learning sessions and webinars, I make no friends when I say this. Like everybody has a, but what about? No, no, like full stop math intervention should only be delivered by a certified teacher. That means not a computer program. I put the kid on this program. That's not an intervention. That's great extra support. I'm so glad you did it. That's not an intervention. The paraprofessional does it. I'm sure that's great extra practice. And if they're well trained, it can be highly beneficial. That's not an intervention. And like a parent volunteer, a peer buddy, that's not an intervention. And really, like two reasons. Number one is that students who are in intervention are struggling the most and therefore should be served by the most qualified people. That it shouldn't be that this is the stuff nobody wants to deal with and it's an afterthought. It's they deserve to be served by the most highly qualified people because they have the most intensive needs. Also, I do have a background in special education. And if a student with an IEP was serviced by a pair professional or computer program, the parents could absolutely file a due process lawsuit and win. And the school or district would be on the hook for providing compensatory services. And I understand that that's a high bar for special education. But why wouldn't we want that to also be the standard for serving students? A lot of times our students in RTI who are getting tier two and three services may eventually end up in special education. And so we should just be giving them the most intensive support from the beginning, like the most highly qualified personnel support, and not just but I put them on a computer or sent them to the corner to work with this other person.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

I agree with you on that. And that's something that I've always been very vocal about because you know I've worked in various schools and oh, this kid, we're gonna give them this many minutes a week for their, you know, to meet their IEP goals. And I'm like, if this parent knew what their rights were for their kid, this would not fly. Like this does not go well. Like we really need to make sure that those are met properly. Side note. But then I think at first when you were talking Naomi, I was like, hmm, yeah, interesting. Okay. But then when you said like these students with the most needs should be taught by the most qualified, I'm like, yes, that right there, just like that sentence alone makes perfect sense. And everything else, you're right, is great, is extra practice, is extra support, but the actual intervention should be delivered by the most qualified person. So yeah. I don't know if that's an unpopular opinion. I guess maybe in the sense that like it's more work for the teacher themselves, I guess. But I like it. It's a good one.

SPEAKER_05 5:29

And I think too that it's a lot of people not knowing or understanding that and also not having the resources, right? Like the kids with disabilities who have specific needs, there are specific people to work with them, but whether they get those people in the spots to help them is another thing, right? Like it always comes down to budget or like who's available. Like I work in this area that has limited resources, but they have so many kids who have specific needs, it's really hard to get the right qualified people in there. And so when I was encountering, I was coaching a teacher who had a student with very extreme behaviors. And so I was like, okay, this is beyond what I can support her with. I have to reach out to our behavior specialist or interventionist so that she can work with the teacher because I'm like, this is this is beyond what we can kind of do at the classroom level. It's gonna be escalated to that. And but but they have such limited resources at their district specifically that they're like scrambling because they don't have enough people to support the kids with the high needs. And so a lot of times they just get people, like people just just people more TAs, which is like better than no extra bodies. They're not necessarily doing the intensive supports, but it's someone to be there. And it's like it's sad because there isn't enough trained people that they just have to kind of hire people to be there. So, you know, it's always comes down to money, unfortunately, and resource.

SPEAKER_06 7:17

But I feel like I would prefer to, you know, if you're talking about paraprofessionals, I would prefer to give them like the bulk of the class. They're very competent people, and then use the teacher with the little group off to the side, like 100% agree. Not just with math, Naomi. I know math is your is your realm, but reading any of those interventions, it's yeah, absolutely. It's got to be that specialized knowledge for sure.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely unpopular among like school administrators for sure, right? They're like, how am I supposed to make that happen? But the bottom line is that I have never worked with a school that was like, we have enough, we have everything we need, we we have enough money, we have enough people. Everybody is trying to serve students in a deficit. Everybody is trying to do the best that they can with limited resources. And so, with that in mind, then it's all about how you prioritize and use the resources that like our budget doesn't allow for that. I like that maybe the unpopular part is like that's not an excuse. What Christine said, maybe it's flipping the script so that it's the paraprofessional leading that tier one instruction to allow 15 minutes for the teacher to pull a group and do that, right? And that is thinking outside of the box. It's changing the way that you use the resources, but it may better help all of the kids.

Pacing Guides That Kill Joy

SPEAKER_05 8:57

Such a good point. Nicole or Krista, does your unpopular opinion follow that or is it separate? Because one of you can you can share yours next.

SPEAKER_04 9:08

Mine, I don't know. Mine, I kind of thought about mine like when Sheila was talking about joy. I I don't know, I'll just share mine because it's I feel like it kind of ties to everybody's in a sense. So mine is about pacing guides, and I will probably also get really passionate about this, Sheila. So I'm gonna just really just state like the facts here, okay, because I guess there's no facts, this is my opinion. But that when we have teachers, you know, these district district-mandated curriculums, which is okay as a resource, in my opinion. But when these pacing guides are inflexible, they essentially distance teachers from responsive student-centered instruction. So thinking about the time thing, you're going down to four days, maybe, or you have longer days, you're still following these pacing guides. And it's like you have to do this on this day at this time in this way. There's no joy for anyone there. There's no joy for the teacher because they're literally just delivering content. There's no joy for the students because it's the exact same thing every day, the exact same way. And you're not able to like meet the needs of your actual kids because you don't get to know them as a learner. You're just saying, This is what you need to know. Now do this in response. And I just think about like what you were saying, Sheila, about joy and that priming aspect of it. Like, there's no priming involved in this, right? And I've always had parents ask so many times, because I always taught little kids, like, well, they're not reading yet, or when and I'm like, we have to like learn to enjoy to read first. We want to enjoy the act of reading and what reading is in books, and then the learning just happens because we're open to it, we're excited about it, we're interested in it. So I'm gonna stop there and you guys can share if you want.

SPEAKER_05 11:17

So many things to say about that. I related and unrelated slightly, but I have I work with many teachers who are just following their pacing guides and have zero joy in their lives as teachers. And well, I mean, I should say not say zero, let's say minimal joy when they're actually teaching. They love their kids, which is great. But I was working with one teacher last year who I still work with this year, and she was very, you know, she was trying to really stick to things. And so often then she would just kind of teach the lesson from the book and kind of take herself out of the lesson. So she was just following the guide, right? Like just doing what it said. And so I was talking to her about like, you know, use your guide as just that. It's a guide, right? So read it, summarize it, think about what do you actually need to teach, and then just teach it. Like just be yourself, be natural. The kids love you. You know, they'll probably respond better to what you're trying to do. And she brought it up the other day when we met, and she's like, I've been doing that more, and it just feels so much better. I feel like more relaxed and more confident in my teaching because I'm not relying specifically, and I like I said, it's related, unrelated to the pacing guide, but just guides in general. And I'm and she's like, and the kids could like I she's like, I feel like I can connect to the kids better because I'm don't have this kind of barrier in front of me. And I think sometimes the pacing guides and the teacher guides, it's great for the resource, but it's also such a barrier to the flexibility that you need as a teacher to respond to the needs of your kids. Like, again, the the keyword is guide. It's not the thing that it's not written in stone. We use it to help us move along, but we have to be responsive. Otherwise, like we're just we're teaching a guide. We're not teaching kids.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

But I think that's the issue that I'm seeing, and I'm sure you're seeing too, Tammy, is like that's what they're doing. And their responsive piece, it makes me think of you, Krista. And like I've asked a few teachers, like, okay, so what are you doing? Like, how are you, do the kids have any say in this? Or are you getting their opinions? Like, how are they feeling about it? And one teacher shared recently, she's just like, she's like, they hate it, they're bored with it. They can just like tell, like, they know what to do at this, you know, during this time, but like they're bored because it's the exact same thing, the exact same way every single day. And so it's there's also no time for that like social emotional learning either, because it's like, well, I have to do this. We don't have time for that. That's not, you know, valuable or important because this has to be completed.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

I've worked again. I I want to go back to those ELA teachers I'm working with. There actually is one, not actually, uh, there is one who has done a fantastic job on integrating SEL while she's using this new program. And we just recorded a podcast that's coming out in a couple of weeks. But I think one of the other things to really bring up around that is that what they think works in theory does not always work in practice. So the teachers are like, we don't have any autonomy. We're not actually getting to what the students enjoy. They're giving us snippets of what we have to get through. And then the admin talked to the company, and the company's like, oh, well, they can add in two of their own texts a year. But the caveat is they can only do that if they get through what is the non-negotiable part. And another interesting piece of that then is that kids are only reading parts and snippets of excerpts, not an entire book. And so you're not taking them on that journey, like you mentioned, Nicole, about having that love of learning because they're only getting little pieces here and there of different works and not an entire story that they can follow the arc for.

SPEAKER_03 15:28

I do want to kind of present the other side of that too. I think that pacing guides are a very important tool to have, and the issues come in how they're implemented. But I think that they're an essential tool because I have absolutely worked with schools where I went in in December and they're still on chapter two in math because my kids aren't ready for what's next. This is all they can handle. And so, like, we've we've changed the expectations completely. We're we're holding these kids to a lower standard and not even trying to teach like an appropriate amount of grade level curriculum. So I think there can be like too much autonomy. There needs to be like a careful balance of you don't have to teach exactly this page on exactly this day, but like it's plus or minus two weeks with within this. Like you don't just get to stick on one chapter for two months because you feel like not everybody gets it.

Removal Requires Repair Conversations

SPEAKER_04 16:40

Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's they're great resources, absolutely. And like I have done curriculum development and design for schools, and I think it's important to have, you know, a plan, a guide for your school year for sure. But it's that the like rigidity of it and not being able to use it as a tool and having to just use it with fidelity rather than like Tammy was saying, take it, digest it, try to understand it, and then teach it rather than just do this on this day kind of idea. For sure.

SPEAKER_05 17:19

We are we are running short on time, so let's get to Krista's unpopular opinion.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Sure. I changed mine from what I had emailed earlier because of a situation that happened. But if you're following my newsletter and my blogs, you've seen this come up. And so Nicole, you sort of set the foundation earlier when you talked about your early teacher self. And my early teacher self would have totally pushed back on what I'm about to say. And I'll tell you why in a minute. But my unpopular opinion is that if for any reason a student is removed from your classroom, the teacher has to sit down with the student and have a repair. They can't kick a student out and then not deal with it because otherwise, when we're looking at separation without repair, we're not having complete learning. The child is learning that I'm a problem. And the culture is that we just discard things when it gets hard. The adult learns that distance over time can make a resolution. And the adults, and this is where I would have pushed back because I was felt very conflict averse when I was younger. And so I would have thought it was a conflict and a bad thing. But I think that if we're talking about integrating social emotional learning and we want students to model that, we as educators have to be willing to model that as well. And I think about my 21-year-old self teaching juniors in high school. I did not kick kids out of class. One, because they went to a 30-minute detention after school that they could give two hoots about. So it didn't change, it doesn't change their behaviors. And oftentimes what I saw from teachers who did that is it caused a disconnection between the teachers and the students. The students felt unwanted. It was never rectified, and it creates a system that I think reinforces control and compliance over connection and taking accountability and showing how conflict is not a bad thing. It can help us grow and come together. So now I'm all behind it, but telling my earlier self that I would have had to have those hard conversations would have sent me into a tizzy, even though I would have known it's important. So when a student's removed from class, a teacher should be required to sit down and even if they need a mediator to repair so the student feels welcomed.

SPEAKER_04 19:37

I I like that. And that also applies to my toddler currently. When I can't keep my cool when I can't regulate my own emotions, we have to come together and have a little repair, which is modeling her that this is how you regulate, right? But also to your point, Krista, like the repair, but also saying, not saying like, well, when you did this, that's why this happened, right? It's this is how I felt. These were the actions I took. I'm sorry. I would love to, you know, move forward differently. So it's not like I'm sorry, but you did this. Like it's that the repair is like is so important for kids because, like you're saying, like it's creates that like disconnect instead, and then they don't feel safe in a space that they have to spend all their days and all their time, which is where they should feel safe.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

I've seen the disconnect happen, right? Where I've been in classrooms and even as a teacher too, where I didn't I didn't realize the importance of that repair piece. And sometimes it happened, sometimes it didn't, but I see that now in classrooms and I'm like, oh man, especially with little kids when they just can't regulate themselves yet, and the teacher doesn't get that opportunity right away to meet with them to talk about it, because the there's just so many other things that they're trying to address right when the when the student comes back. So it's really like kind of back to that intentionality, like really thinking about okay, this is when the student left. I have to take note that I have to remember to talk to them when they come back, even if that means like the kids are doing something independently or something when they come back, if I'm doing full group, like it has to be an immediate thing. Otherwise, time goes on and it gets let go of, and you don't it's then then the connection with your student is just it fizzles. It's it's so much harder to repair.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Honestly, I think if that was the rule, I'd have thought twice about asking for external help for a student because I too am non confrontation. And to avoid having that conversation later, I would just handle the less difficult thing right now.

When Kids Get Kicked Out

SPEAKER_05 22:11

Absolutely. Okay, she left.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Oh, I was just gonna chime in with when Krista was saying, like having to follow up to say yes, yes, yes, because as a former first grade classroom teacher, my experiences with children who were sent out of the room was not in my room, but sadly, it was when they went to the special classes, the extra classes that were looked at as more of a reward than actually a necessity for every single child in my room, not just the ones that conform to the rules of that classroom. That I would go often to those more difficult children when I would go to pick them up from those art or music classes, and they're sitting out in the hallway in first grade, out in the hallway, because that teacher kicked them out of the room. And when I would go to the door to pick up my full class, the teacher would say, Yeah, they they can't be in here because I can't teach my class with them in here. You need to take them. And one piece of me was always, well, when they're in my room, I have to teach them whether whether I like the way they're behaving or not. They are part of my responsibility in that room. And I need to work with them and to go back to what you said, Chris. You know, I have to connect and find out what's going on so that we can both come up with a solution on how to handle it, not just for them to fix themselves, but also how can I adjust myself to better accommodate and meet this child where they are and what needs they may have. And yet I thought, but these other teachers are just kicking these children out of the room without ever getting to know. Oh, if you knew the story behind why they're coming in and acting out the way they're acting out, you may have a little more compassion for them and understanding of why, because it's not that they're just wanting to be a problem child, but they don't know how to handle the life circumstances that they're in. And so had they had to have that follow-up piece, it could have been so substantial, not just from the educator standpoint of understanding that child, but also for that child to understand that they matter. Like that piece of mattering for that child is no, you matter just as much in that classroom as everyone else in there. And that I see you and I want to know you, and a flip on the educator side, as the whatever class they're teaching, that what you're teaching is important and matters to every individual, not just the ones that are sitting as robots and conforming to whatever it is that they have to do. But every like your subject matters to all of them. Um, so I wish, I wish that that was the case, Krista.

SPEAKER_05 25:03

I don't want to cut off our conversation, but we are at a point where we have to end it. I think we need another hour or two to discuss many of these things that have come up. So we'll pause our episode there. Normally we would get pared down pointers from everyone, but today's episode, there was there was so much in there that I think our listeners can just pick out their nuggets themselves, and we'll definitely have some more. I think we need some more unpopular opinion episodes for sure. Thank you so much for being with us today, ladies. Thank you.

Sponsor And Listener Callouts

SPEAKER_07 25:39

Thank you. This episode is sponsored by Plan Z Education Services, supporting educators with forward-thinking professional learning that puts both student impact and teacher wellness at the center. Driven by a vision to teach less, impact more, they help educators find purpose, prioritize what matters, and simplify their practice. Learn more at planzeducation.com.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Thank you for listening to the Minimalist Educator Podcast. Join Christine and Tammy and guests again next time for more conversations about how to simplify and clarify the responsibilities and tasks in your role. If today's episode helped you rethink, reimagine, reduce, or realign something in your practice, share it in a comment or with a colleague. For resources and updates, visit planzeducation.com and subscribe to receive weekly emails. Until next time, keep it simple and stay intentional.