Episode 019: Reputation

In today’s episode, we have a question from a listener! John asks, “How much should teachers worry about our reputations? Should we lean into a good reputation and take more risks? If we have a bad reputation, how should we go about correcting this?” In the conversation, we talk about some of the problems of how parents and students--and teachers--talk about reputations of teachers, and how they are sometimes unfairly arrived at. We discuss the role of risk-taking based on reputation, and committing to “daring acts of pedagogy.” We also consider the difference between reputation and legacy, and how teachers and school leaders can aim more for “legacy” than “reputation” in their schools.