Great teachers are not simply born — it takes special people to inspire a classroom. What many students don’t know: some of the most famous musicians, writers and politicians stood in front of a class themselves before they became household names. Here are six of them, and what their time as teachers tells us about the job.

1. Lyndon B. Johnson — teacher in Cotulla, Texas

Long before he became the 36th President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson took a year off college in 1928 to earn money as a teacher. He taught fifth, sixth and seventh graders at the Welhausen School in Cotulla, Texas, a segregated school for the children of poor Mexican-American families. Many of his students came to school hungry. Johnson organized sports and contests, bought sports equipment with his first paycheck — and the experience stayed with him: the Elementary and Secondary Education Act he signed as President in 1965 is often traced back to his year in Cotulla.

2. Sting — primary school teacher in Northern England

Before The Police, Gordon Sumner — better known as Sting — trained as a teacher and taught at St Paul’s First School in Cramlington, near Newcastle, for about two years in the mid-1970s.

3. Gene Simmons — sixth-grade teacher in Spanish Harlem

The KISS bassist taught sixth grade in New York’s Spanish Harlem for about six months. By his own account he quit when he realised what really drew him to the front of the classroom: he wanted an audience — and forty students were not enough.

4. Art Garfunkel — math teacher in Connecticut

Art Garfunkel holds a master’s degree in mathematics education. During a break from music in 1971–72 he taught geometry to tenth graders at Litchfield Academy, a private school in Connecticut, and later said he loved the act of teaching.

5. Stephen King — high school English teacher in Maine

Stephen King taught English at Hampden Academy in Maine from 1971. He wrote in the evenings and on weekends, often in the laundry room of his trailer, until the sale of his first novel, Carrie, in 1973 allowed him to write full-time.

6. J.K. Rowling — English teacher in Portugal, French teacher in Scotland

In the early 1990s J.K. Rowling moved to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a foreign language; she worked on the first Harry Potter chapters there. After returning to the UK she qualified as a teacher and taught French at Leith Academy in Edinburgh around the time the first book was published.

What their stories show about teaching

• Teaching is communication. Musicians and writers alike describe the classroom as training in holding an audience and explaining ideas clearly.
• It builds discipline. King and Rowling wrote their first books around a full teaching schedule.
• It leaves a mark. Johnson’s year in Cotulla stayed with him all the way to the White House.

If you are a student thinking about a teaching career, you are in good company — and the skills you gain in front of a class are useful far beyond the classroom.

Want more examples? Read 5 Famous People You Probably Didn’t Know Were Educators on our sister blog Tech Crates.

Sources: National Park Service: Lyndon B. Johnson the Teacher; Sting (Wikipedia); Biography: Gene Simmons; Art Garfunkel (Wikipedia); Books from Scotland: J.K. Rowling