While teachers receive huge amounts of praise for their dedication to their pupils, the vast majority don’t expect their vocation to lead to fame and glory. There are, in fact, a number of influential A-listers who began their career in the classroom.
In this blog we will look at some of the most unexpected former teachers among the rich and famous.
Jill Biden
Mrs Biden holds a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees, and a doctorate of education from the University of Delaware and, prior to moving to Washington DC, she taught at a community college, a public high school and a psychiatric hospital for adolescents.
While her husband served as vice-president under President Obama between 2009 and 2017, the then Second Lady was a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College.
In August, Mrs Biden tweeted “teaching is not what I do. It’s who I am,” and gave her address at this year’s Democratic Party convention from her old classroom at Delaware’s Brandywine High School, where she taught English between 1991 and 1993.
Hugh Jackman
Before enrolling at university in Australia to study drama and going on to become a Hollywood superstar, Hugh Jackman spent his gap year as a teaching assistant at Uppingham School, a private boarding school in the East Midlands.
As a keen sportsman, Jackman spent much of his time teaching PE and coaching sports teams, but also tutored some pupils in English and Drama.
Among his pupils was Rollo Ross, who would go on to become a reporter interviewing his former teacher on the red carpet.
Sting
Before achieving pop success with the Police, Gordon Sumner, or Sting as he is better known, was a teacher in his native north east of England.
After working as a bus conductor, building labourer and tax officer he trained as a teacher, graduating from Northern Counties College of Education (now known as Northumbria University) and taught for two years at St. Paul's First School in Cramlington.
Jon Hamm
Years before becoming an Emmy-winning actor known best for his performance in Mad Men, Jon Hamm was teaching drama to high school students.
After graduating with an English degree in 1993, Hamm returned to his high school, teaching eighth-grade acting. One of his students was Ellie Kemper who also became an actor and Hamm later appeared in her Netflix series, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
In an interview in 2017, Hamm said: "I think teaching is one of the great professions on the planet and I had the good fortune to do it for a year. I would definitely go back to it, and I might still."
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair, also known by his pen name George Orwell, became a teacher at The Hawthorns High School, a small school for boys, in Hayes, West London in 1932 and later moved to teach at Frays College in Middlesex in 1933. He published his first book – Down and Out in Paris and London – during this time but would never return to teaching after contracting pneumonia at Frays College.
One of his pupils discussed his experiences of sharing a classroom with Orwell in a Radio 4 production and described a harsh classroom style and a reliance on corporal punishment.
Greg Davies
Although many will recognise comedian Greg Davies from his role as Mr Gilbert, the intimidating head of sixth-form in hit comedy The Inbetweeners, he actually spent thirteen years teaching secondary school Drama and English at Langleywood School in Slough, Orleans Park School in Twickenham, and Sandhurst School in Sandhurst.
He has since admitted that teaching was perhaps not the career for him, and in an interview in 2013 revealed the response of his head teacher after being nominated for a prestigious Teacher of the Year award.
He said: “The pupil had to fill in four pages of documentation, but on the form she had simply written one thing. It said: “Mr Davies is a well good laugh, and he don’t make us do no work.” The head wiped away tears of laughter before throwing the form in the bin.”
Romesh Ranganathan
Davies’ fellow comic Romesh Ranganathan also taught before braving the world of comedy, working as a maths teacher and head of sixth form at a school in Crawley where he met his wife.
Romesh had always planned to be a teacher, choosing to pursue his love of stand up as a hobby, but it’s fair to say he’s happy to be free of marking. In an interview in 2016 he said: "I loved working with kids - I think kids are great - so the bit in the classroom I enjoyed, but everything else, I hated. So marking, staying on top of paperwork and all that stuff, I just wasn't good at it. When you're rubbish at something, you don't like it."