Those who can — breaking into the world of UX

Looking to shift careers, into the world of UX, the familiar phrase of ‘But you’re just a teacher’ has started to creep in.

A person I believe who has added to this doubting discourse of mine, and many others, is George.

In George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Maxims for Revolutionists’, he famously wrote, ‘He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.’ and despite teachers no longer just falling under the pronoun ‘he’, this saying and often more absurdly widespread truth, for some, has stuck. I wonder how George would have felt about ‘she’ and ‘they’ teaching? I wonder what he would have had to say about them? And although his pithy remarks have clung on, I’d like to think that his one-liners would have been bashed around a little more on social media today.

Like Mr Shaw, many people have their own fully-fledged opinions on teachers whether they know it or not. On platforms such as LinkedIn, it is fair to surmise that most people, including yourself, have had a personal experience of being at school or been in some form of the education system, either as a child, adult, or if you’re lucky at all stages of your life.

There is no doubt that wide access to education is great, but it can be a limiting factor to teachers who are hoping to transition into a new realm of work. Cultural lenses worn by us all mean that individuals have preconceived ideas of what a teacher’s role entails based on their experience(s) of education. For some, it may have been a gruelling slog whilst for others, it rings out achievement and fond memories. As a result, people have different takes on what education means and what it means to be a teacher based on their own personal experience.

So, although, not everyone has had direct contact with the world of marketers, filmmakers, managers or decision-makers, it is safe to say that everyone has had a teacher and we will all take on the role of a teacher at some point in our lives, too.

Pushing George aside, because we’ve heard enough from him over the years, one thing I know for sure is teachers can. Teachers strategise, they lend a listening and empathetic ear, they juggle 5 tasks at once, they make sure to say the names of all the children in their class daily, they research individual needs, they are learners, they are planners, they care, they evolve with forever changing curriculums. They adapt. They design. They are forever curious.

I say to anyone who gets an application from a teacher, trying to break into the world of UX, to put down their cultural lenses as those who teach, can. And, they can do so much more.