“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” -George Bernard Shaw

What does it mean?

This quote is often used as an insult to teachers, as it was originally in Shaw’s work Maxims for Revolutionists. But there’s SO much more to it.

So, people use the quote to imply that people with skills to do productive things take jobs doing those things, instead of teaching. It also implies that those people who can’t succeed end up taking teaching jobs, instead of working in industry.

However, there’s an important other side to this – WHY don’t people who succeed in business and industry go into schools and colleges to teach? I’ll discuss that next.

What should I take from this quote?

You might take from this quote that teachers are unsuccessful people who have resorted to teaching. Presumably, their audience – students – don’t know the topic, so the teacher won’t be judged by them as being unsuccessful. Seems like a good fit! Right?

Well, first of all, teaching is a skill. I’m certain that you have had at least one teacher who was very smart but couldn’t explain what they knew well enough for you to learn it. It takes a special person to have the patience and skill required to be a good teacher. That should never go unappreciated.

But more significantly, note that teaching doesn’t attract successful people from industry very often. A big part of this is the pay and workload. When a successful person can make $100,000 per year working in their field, why would they leave this job to teach for $50,000 per year, and work 60-80 hours per week to get it? It happens, but the incentives go against this kind of thing happening too often.

What’s not-so-great about this quote?

Well, it’s meant as an insult to our teachers, and that’s how most people use it. But what’s worse is that few people slow down to think about the WHY behind the quote. As above, there are significant disincentives to leave a successful career and change to teaching. So, teachers tend to stay in schools, and business people tend to stay in business – but both need each other. It’s unfortunate that this quote gets thrown around without much thought about these truths.