I think the public perception of teachers varies a lot between societies. In breaking bad it was clear that Americans don't think much of a guy who ends up teaching chemistry. If you go to other countries it's very different, eg in Switzerland it seemed totally legit to aspire to teaching. Salary was 120k according to the kid who told me.

> according to the kid who told me

Come on, you can do better than this and actually invest the minute to type this into your search engine of choice and verify:

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/swiss-salaries-teachers...

So according to this, Swiss teachers make between CHF 95,590 and CHF 110,590 annually. Cost of living is also higher in Switzerland, so it's a bit less than "120k" would suggest, but still a solid salary. Refer to the link for details.

It's in the ballpark, and will certainly get to 120K once you have some seniority.

The point was more that a person thinking about what to do could admit to saying he wanted to be a teacher in Switzerland, whereas in the US it seems like making Walter White a teacher was the perfect way to say he'd somehow failed.

Admittedly, if the choice is being a "successful" chemist, and bringing into existence VX gas, TNT, Phosgene, Thalidomide, Teflon, various industrial chemical wastes that tend to end up creating Superfund sites, and being a chemistry teacher... I may be getting pretty lame as I get older, but I think the Teacher strictly speaking has the quantifiably lesser destructive footprint of the two outcomes. Then again, the argument there is likely one against mixing business majors, industrial chemists, and more lawyers than you can shake a stick at. So... Yeah. Take it with a grain of salt and call me in the morning.

My high school was in the US. I think good teachers anywhere are teachers because it is their calling. Breaking Bad is hardly the normative reference of how people should view teachers.

I can agree with that, but the fact that it's believable is the giveaway.

Could you make a movie where being a doctor makes the main character a failure in life? Such a movie would almost certainly have to be a comedy where the character is a failure in spite of being a doctor, not because.

Probably related to the old joke: Those who cannot do, teach and those that cannot teach, manage.

And honestly, it is a bad joke as it propagates bad stereotypes.

for sure, a bad joke all the way around.