Legacy in Education: The Work You Leave Behind

In this line of work, we talk a lot about learning targets, benchmarks, and growth. But the longer I stay in education, the more I think about something we don’t name nearly enough: legacy.

Not the dramatic, marble-statue kind. More like the “How did I show up today—and did it matter?” kind.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m someone who’s built their life around learning—showing up every day, trying to be a little better than yesterday, trying to serve students and staff in ways that actually matter. That’s why most of us got into this business in the first place. Not the freedom of wearing jeans on Fridays. Definitely not the meetings that could have been emails . We are here for the kids and the colleagues who make this work feel purposeful.

But this reflection isn’t about just me. It’s about the teachers who are rounding that final bend of their careers.

You know who you are.
Maybe you’re counting years, months, or the “After winter break, only 78 more Mondays” kind of countdown.
Maybe there’s nowhere up left to climb on the salary schedule.
Maybe this is your third time on the pendulum ride of educational philosophy, and you're thinking, “Didn’t we already do this in ’09? And guess what, folks—it worked then, too.”
Maybe the connection with kids has shifted—still there, still meaningful, but not quite the same spark you had at 22, or 32, or even your early 40s.

And yet… here you are.
Still standing.
Still showing up.
Still carrying decades of experience that no workshop, no webinar, and no AI tool (hi!) can replicate.

The Truth We Don’t Say Out Loud Enough

The era of teachers staying in one place for their whole career may be fading, but it’s definitely not gone. And honestly? We need the ones who’ve stayed. Desperately.

Because these are the people who bring:

• Stability when the system shifts for the nineteenth time.

• Perspective when new ideas show up claiming to be “revolutionary.”

• Sanity when someone suggests changing the bell schedule… again.

• Impact—the kind you only earn after touching thousands of student lives and mentoring dozens of colleagues.

And here's the part we don’t talk about nearly enough:
Your greatest impact might not be behind you. It might actually be right now.

Not because of test scores or lesson plans or committees you’ve chaired, but because of what younger educators see when they look at you.

They’re watching how you finish.

Teaching Young Teachers What the Profession Really Is

This generation of young teachers is entering a profession that is harder, louder, more public, and more scrutinized than ever. They need models—real ones. People who have seen the highs and lows, who’ve reinvented themselves more times than an iOS update, and who still show up with dignity and purpose. People who know the realities of the hard days, and know that the best days make the hard days worth enduring!

This is where legacy comes in.

We get to show young educators:

• That the profession still matters.

• That you can evolve and still stay true to who you are.

• That you can choose collaboration over competition.

• That being seasoned doesn’t mean being cynical.

• That curiosity doesn’t have an age limit.

Kids need you, yes. But young teachers might need you even more. They need to see that resilience is a skill. That joy is a choice. And that you can walk into retirement not burned out and bitter, but proud—and dare I say—just as energetic as the 24-year-old across the hall… in your own “seasoned professional” way.

So, What Will They Say When You Leave?

Legacy isn’t what we intended to do. It’s what people remember we actually did.

So we all get to decide:

Will young teachers say we were stubborn, cranky, and disinterested in anything invented after 2015?

Or will they say we modeled growth, generosity, and the kind of grounded wisdom that makes this profession feel like a calling again?

Public schools need that version of us now more than ever.

And someday—when you walk out for the last time, keys turned in, badge deactivated—you’ll know you left something behind that can’t be measured but absolutely can be felt.

A legacy worth talking about.