TWENTY-EIGHT years ago I was involved in causing a section of my classroom to burst into laughter around the phrase: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

I felt bad for the teacher that day, David Muwanika, and was later contrite about it. He, true to his vocation, was forgiving, and is now a regular contact in the ordinary world where we are all reasonable adults.

In recent days I have since learnt what the phrase really means because of this global crisis consuming our thoughts, energies and resources.

Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

‘Teach’, in the sense of that phrase, did not refer strictly to the vocation of delivering education. Many teachers actually can do the things they share with their students – especially at higher levels of education.

It does include that type of teaching, and on a polite note accommodates people who can’t actually do much to help on the front-line of this COVID-19 war.

Those who can, though, includes the medical professionals battling to identify and treat the ill, the security people trying to control people so that infection doesn’t spread, the philanthropists putting money and items together to support the cause, and more.

Those who can are the people who volunteer to do things that help – like people who gave their time to serve at call centres; and those who signed up to search for the travellers who hadn’t come in to be quarantined; and the ones offering rides to medical professionals during the lockdown…

Those who can do, those who can’t, teach.

So those who can’t and therefore teach, in the polite sense of the phrase, includes the ones who observe what those who can are doing and then use it to teach others that come after them.

The journalists who are covering the stories, and the preachers who are fashioning sermons after the works of the heroes at the frontline are some of those who can’t, and therefore teach.

Then there are those who can’t and teach but in a different sense – the one that has come to realisation now, so late in life.

Those are the ones who display a tendency of talking about an issue or problem in many ways without doing anything at all to help resolve it.

Motivational speaker Robin Sharma even changed the phrase to, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, criticise.”

In today’s world of social media activism there is an irritating abundance of those who can’t simply criticising rather than doing anything helpful. At every turn and corner these few weeks past have been full of their