Those who can do, can't teach.

The old George Bernard Shaw line is "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." More cranky Shavian wisdom, dumping his usual load of, uh, Shaw on the heads on lesser humans. 

Nevertheless, the fact that that line survives in common wisdom while many of his other pithy remarks do not shows there's some truth to it. Actors who are rolling in offers to perform don't have time to teach acting classes, but others who struggle do, and need the money. That's just one example, and I hope it isn't actually universally applicable. Do you want a brain surgeon who was educated entirely by people incapable of doing brain surgery? Do we want mathematicians on space programs who have been taught by those who can't calculate? 

Maybe it only applies to the arts. And, I'll say other skilled work, like sports. But there is a flip side, as the title of this blog entry makes clear -- many who can do actually can't teach. 

Aaron Judge may be challenging Babe Ruth's single-season home run record, but the Bambino is still the greatest home run hitter who ever lived; if he played entirely in the live-ball era with today's relatively dinky ballparks he'd have probably hit a thousand dingers. But could he teach someone to hit?

Apparently not, and the baseball people knew it. Ruth had hoped he would be selected as a manager for the Yankees, but he only got to be a first-base coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers. And that didn't go too well, according to the site DodgerBlue:  

Ruth made his coaching debut with a doubleheader but his overall time with the Dodgers was largely unassuming. Anecdotes detail Ruth’s interest in relaying signs as non-existent. He was ejected from an August game due to arguing a call with a first-base umpire.

     Ruth’s arrival did improve attendance but the team’s play largely remained the same. They went 47-49 after he joined the coaching staff and finished 11 games below .500. Brooklyn went 16-13 in July, which was just one of two winning months that season.

What about Ted Williams, the Splendid Splinter, the last man to hit over .400? He was a proud and clever man, a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea. Surely he had some wisdom to impart that would make his team better. 

Nope. Williams's stint as manager of the Senators/Rangers from 1969 to 1972 left him with a record of 273-364, and that was it for his managing career. 

How about the brilliant-hitting Cardinal, Stan the Man Musial? He had some sophisticated advice for the aspiring hitter: "You wait for a strike, then you knock the shit out of it." 

So basically we can see that not everyone is cut out to impart practical knowledge to the next generation. The reason I was thinking about this was that my dad was like that. He could fix anything, but he was incapable of teaching anything. It wasn't his fault. Good teachers really are a gift in any field, and not everyone has the knack. 

I hate the way our nation is expected to slaver over professional educators as a class. Forget it. As we've been discovering, a lot of them suck at teaching (we may have remembered that from our own schooling) and some should not be allowed near children. But if you or your kids had a truly good teacher, be grateful for that. Knowledge alone isn't enough, and theory probably does nothing but get in the way. You have to have the knack.