"Those who can't, teach"

On becoming a teacher.

At parties, I have a great conversation starter. I have worked in a film, I say, of the kind that got screened in cinemas all over the world. My words make their eyelashes jump, their eyes pop out. I speak well and I notice that I am able to dazzle curious gazes with stories from the set, of long hours and strenuous circumstances dozens of people have to go through for the magic to reveal on the screen. “You know I myself have a story for a film,” comes the typical response and the rest of the evening goes easy.

In my twenties, I had also worked in journalism and on the fringes of the development industry. This coupled with a liberal arts degree in Philosophy and History of Mathematics and Science, has meant that I can easily somersault into professional chit chat about most industries. Yet, I have always been reluctant to discuss the one profession that has actually helped me make a living for the most part. Almost ninety percent of my lifetime income has come from teaching, still there is a sense of shame to discuss openly the ups and downs of a teaching life.

At school, a senior colleague had recently shared that when he first joined a school, he never answered his relatives earnestly when asked what he did for a job. I suspect that this feeling is common among teachers all around the world. At least, this is true for me.

Fresh out of college, I worked as a middle school English and History teacher. My colleagues supported me, my students loved me and I think I was good for a first year teacher. Yet I did not enjoy it. The school environment had an element of déjà vu that I could not shake off.

All my life I had been a student and now I was a teacher. I felt that I was hiding away from a life more real. I panicked thinking that the world was moving ahead while I was left behind teaching thirteen-year-olds how to write a sentence. This sense of panic sharpened when I spoke to my friends. They were working in tech and tall skyscrapers, making the kind of money that made their parents brag about to their relatives.

I returned to Nepal, promising myself I would never become a teacher again in my life. Back in Kathmandu I chased a quixotic dream of becoming rich by writing. I also substituted for a semester or two at undergraduate colleges in the Valley, but I reminded myself that this was but temporary. It was not a school with so much of the structure that had suffocated me, I consoled myself.

My command in craft was improving, but it did not provide a semblance of a career or money that I was becoming anxious about. I returned back to the US to pursue my masters. Then in 2022, after finishing grad school, I was looking for a job. I was hell-bent on finding a corporate job. One that paid well, even if it required me to slave into the night. I must have applied to 400+ jobs. I got interviewed by two or three, but mostly I got ghosted. I had rents and bills to pay. In desperation, I applied to a school. I got the job as a substitute teacher within minutes of applying. The deputy principal asked me one question before hiring me — can you join tomorrow? I was hired simply because the school needed a human body in the classroom. I first worked as a substitute teacher then transitioned into a special education paraprofessional. I disliked the school environment. Was school going to be a nightmare that would chase me forever? I began counting the days when my girlfriend would finish her Masters so that we could return to Nepal.

Once back in Nepal, I begged my way into a film set. I worked hard and got appreciated for efforts. I was promised a bright career as a film professional. Perhaps as an assistant director and if I worked hard enough I could also write and direct a film in time. After the production, I continued to work on that film as a subtitle writer and eventually as its marketing manager for the Nepal release. It was continuous work, day or night. It was a work driven by obsessive madness. It was fulfilling work. The film released. It tanked at the box office. It broke my heart and working army-style without a moment of respite broke my body. To become a film director someday meant choosing uncertain pay as well as months away from family. I knew that if I let go of security and dove into the film world, this would be commemorated in social media posts in case I became successful. But for every success of passion that the world celebrates, there are thousands of those who continue to labor without recognition and reward. There is beauty to it and it is this mad passion for the arts that life becomes a joyous adventure. To be even half descent in the craft of filmmaking, I would have to labor intensely for the next five years, and the prospect of having a nearly empty bank account at the dawn of a new decade of my life did not entice me. I had to get a regular job. Soaring twenties, settled thirties.

So I have become a teacher again. This time as a high school teacher at a reputed international school. The pay is good, the students are lovely, and — I had not anticipated this — it is a joyride to go to school every day. For the first time in my life I did not see teaching as a transitory practice, but as a long term professional endeavor.

Over the past several months, I have learned that my journey as an educator is not peculiar. Several of my colleagues were, like me, pursuing other things. Some attempted at becoming civil servants before the exigencies of life pushed them into offering tuition classes and eventually into full time teaching roles at the school.

Perhaps the maxim ‘those who can’t, teach’ has some truth to it. But this does not have to be disparaging, that just because I have been unsuccessful in other careers means that I will be incompetent as a teacher. It is quite the opposite. In not succeeding as a filmmaker or a journalist, I have valuable lessons to share with my students. But this remains underappreciated. There seems to be a general consensus that teaching is a noble, necessary pursuit. Despite the high need of this profession, I have noticed a dearth of teachers. This was true when I lived in the United States and it is true in Nepal now. Very few consciously choose the profession and even fewer remain in it for long enough to see their students graduate.

It has been liberating to find a profession and a workplace I enjoy. When someone asked the last time I was at a party, I revealed without hesitation, even with a hint of pride, “I am a teacher.” There was never a follow-up question, nor did the individual linger long to talk with me. It is nonetheless liberating to have found work which is at the intersection of something I am good at, something that helps me make money and something that adds value to the world. This is a bliss.

---

E.A. Séguy’s vintage butterflies (1925)