…is a phrase indicating that it’s easier to get a job teaching how to do something than to get a job actually doing that thing.
Apparently, the origin of the phrase comes from playwright George Bernard Shaw and more recently commented on by Woody Allen with his riff, “those who can’t do, teach and those who can’t teach, teach gym.”
The original statement from Shaw’s 1903 drama series actually stated that “those who can, do; those who can’t teach.”
It seems both Shaw and Allen may have had little idea of what teaching is because teaching is ‘doing teaching.
Though it seems obvious that if one can’t really do something one can’t really teach it, Seneca the Younger’s quote that “while we teach, we learn,” puts us in a bit of a quandary.
Is it possible then that it’s not binary ‘either/or‘ but ‘and‘ meaning we need both together? Teaching and doing are part of the same thing. And being more generous with our work by understanding that just in the doing we’re teaching and in teaching, we’re doing helps things along.
Written while listening to Bach’s English Suites.
William Kerr And associates 