5 Rock Star Teachers: From Hall Passes to Headlining

There aren't many bands where most or all of the members have college degrees. It's certainly not a prerequisite, but there are a couple of bands where all members are college graduates. There are also some rock star teachers. I wide variety of personalities and points of view, check out our list of rock star teachers and decide which you would have liked to have as a teacher.

Mercurydailypost lists September 7th, 1971 as Brian May's first day as a math and science teacher at Stockwell Manor Comprehensive School in London. The Queen guitarist worked there for 3 months

Brian said he thinks math gets a bad rap because it's difficult to teach. "My solution was to draw a picture. If you have a problem and draw a picture, a graph, a pie chart, you imagine it as a real problem rather than a jumble of figures." Brian gave credit, "I got that from my dad. If I ever had a problem at school, my dad would say: 'Right, draw a picture'. It works, even in quantum mechanics."

Brian also has a PhD in astrophysics.

Gene Simmons bassist for KISS was sixth grade substitute teacher in the 70's at New York City's P.S.75 for six months. “The reason I quit after six months is that I discovered the real reason I became a teacher," Simmons said. "It was because I wanted to get up onstage and have people notice me. I had to quit because the stage was too small. Forty people wasn’t enough. I wanted 40,000.” Spoken like a true rock star teacher.

Side note: Gene Simmons is an excellent typist.

Sting (Gordon Sumner) was a teacher from 1974-1976. The facts are patchy, but after checking multiple sources I'd say Mr. Sumner taught English and coached soccer. He said he was a "terrible teacher" but he did inspire students too.

"I inspired the kids only by teaching them what I liked and what I was inspired by and enjoyed... that was basically soccer and poetry." The song "Don't Stand So Close to Me," rumored to have been inspired by his teaching days, is about a teacher dealing with student flirtations. These days, Sting says it was based on no particular person.

DeYoung was a music teacher for elementary students at the Kolmar School in Midlothian, Illinois. According to SocietyofRock, Dennis said,

It wasn't easy for Mark to make money straight out of college. "I finally got a job teaching English in a college, which I was delighted to have because it proved to be a real steadying influence," he said. "There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week."

Alice Cooper isn't a rock star teacher, but he knows something about schooling.