Those Who Can't Do Teach?

Ozzie Guillen who now manages the Chicago White Sox also played for them, having been the Rookie of the Year and named to the All Star Team three times. He bristles at the admiration given to Buck Showalter, now managing the Baltimore Orioles, who was never good enough to make the Major Leagues, something he shares with former Oriole manager and Hall of Famer Earl Weaver. It seems that to do well teaching someone to play major league baseball, and teaching is a part of coaching, one does not have to be able to have done it oneself.

How unusual is this? For most things in life do you have to be able to do something and do it well to teach others how to do it? We figure that the people to teach chemistry ought to be chemists, the people to teach anthropology ought to be anthropologists, the people to teach music ought to be musicians. Business management schools frequently crow about the way their faculty has real-life experience in he workplace. But is it any more true in these intellectual pursuits than it is in baseball? Is experience in what you are teaching necessary to be a good teacher? Is it helpful?