“Those who can, do,” observed George Bernard Shaw. “Those who can’t, teach.” As someone who has spent a lifetime teaching I’ve never warmed to that observation. I was reminded of it the other day when I overheard a remark from an architect colleague, who also happens to be a teacher. “The A-students end up teaching,” he said. “The B-students end up working for the C-students.” Other than the fact that grade inflation has virtually eliminated C-students, his observation accords with my own experience. Two of the three top students in my graduating class ended up as teachers; some of the weakest students, on the other hand, were precisely those who early on opened their own firms, or became partners. The average student is likely to be an employee. This has something to do with both the teaching and the practice of architecture. Teaching tends to over-emphasize design, but the best designers don’t necessarily make the best practitioners. Success in the profession depends about 50 percent on design, and 50 percent on other abilities, especially social skills. As the great H. H. Richardson ( seen below in an 1886 portrait) pointed out, the most important thing in architecture is getting the job.

H.H. Richardson