Education Quote by Sting

The swagger in Sting's offhand phrasing is that it treats an ordinary job like a mission. "Recruited" belongs to the language of armies and rock bands, not primary schools, and that's the point: he recasts a modest, working-class start as something chosen, even fateful. It's a subtle flex, but also a tell. Before the myth, there was employment, and before the global stage, there was a classroom full of 9-year-olds who don't care about your aura.

The second sentence is the punchline and the grounding wire. "I taught for two years" is blunt, unadorned, almost bureaucratic. The contrast deflates any temptation to romanticize. He isn't claiming saintliness or trauma; he's establishing credibility through specificity. Two years is long enough to feel the grind and short enough to suggest restlessness - a person already leaning toward an exit, toward music, toward a life where "recruited" will finally sound literal.

The subtext is about origin stories and class mobility: the glamorous artist reminding you he once did the kind of socially approved, steady work people point to when they want you to "be practical". Teaching 9-year-olds also carries a quiet metaphorical charge. That age is all raw attention, testing boundaries, emotional volume - a rehearsal space for a performer learning crowd control, timing, and empathy. The line works because it collapses distance between the icon and the pre-fame self without begging for admiration: just two crisp sentences that let the listener do the mythmaking.