Teaching Profession Opinion

Teachers Offer Self-Care Tips in Just a Few Words

By Larry Ferlazzo 鈥� October 31, 2023 2 min read

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Larry Ferlazzo

Opinion Contributor, Education Week

Larry Ferlazzo is a former award-winning high school English and social studies teacher of more than two decades. He is currently a volunteer tutor to English-learner newcomers at a local school and to youth in juvenile hall.

(This the final post in a two-part series. You can see Part One here.)

How do we teachers get past tough days and ready to approach the next day fresh and positive?

Here are some ideas from 糖心动漫vlog:

Everyone deserves the gift of a fresh start that tomorrow will bring-including you.

I鈥檓 playing long ball.

As the Traveling Wilburys once said: 'Every day is just one day.'

How can I turn this oops into an opportunity?

I'll try again tomorrow.

No two days are the same.

Tomorrow will be better; go swimming, stand up paddle boarding, or for a walk, and eat something healthy tonight.

Forgive yourself and others.

Tomorrow is a new day and they will be ready for a fresh start so I need to be there with them

I play guitar for 15 minutes- sometimes softly, sometimes with the amplifier cranked up to 11.

Tomorrow鈥檚 a new day, a new opportunity.

Remember it was a bad day, not a bad life. Tomorrow is a fresh start.

Having deep personal interests outside of school (for me running & raising animals) have been therapeutic - teaching is just one of the many things I do; it doesn't define who I am.

Every day is a clean slate, for me and them.

My late parents used to tell me...'Ya ma帽ana ser谩 otro d铆a.'

I remind myself I have another chance tomorrow, then I blast my favorite music on the ride home.

I think about what went wrong and how I will fix it or work through it with my students the next day.

In the wise words of Nemo , 'Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!'

Thanks to everyone who contributed their thoughts!

The question-of-the-week is:

You鈥檙e a teacher, and you鈥檝e had a very tough day in the classroom. In one sentence (not a run-on), what do you say to yourself and/or do to get beyond it and back into a positive frame of mind for the next day?

Part One shared teachers鈥� responses from Twitter and Facebook.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it鈥檚 selected or if you鈥檇 prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at .

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. It鈥檚 titled .

Just a reminder; you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via (The RSS feed for this blog, and for all Ed Week articles, has been changed by the new redesign鈥攏ew ones are not yet available). And if you missed any of the highlights from the first 11 years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below.

I am also creating a .

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.