Marcus Aurelius did not teach English as a foreign language. But he had students, he had days that did not go as planned, and he had the distinct experience of doing his best under conditions he did not fully control. His notes on this — what we call the Meditations — are the most useful professional development tool I have encountered.
The Dichotomy That Changes Everything
Epictetus, the freed slave who became Stoicism’s most rigorous teacher, opens the Enchiridion with a single distinction: some things are up to us, and some things are not. What is up to us: our judgments, impulses, desires, and aversions. What is not: our bodies, reputations, careers, the weather, and crucially — other people’s behaviour and choices.
In a language classroom, this distinction is clarifying to the point of being uncomfortable.
What is up to me: the quality of my lesson design. The clarity of my explanations. The precision of my feedback. The energy I bring. The examples I choose. The scaffolding I build.
What is not up to me: whether a student studies between sessions. Whether they choose to attempt the IELTS this year or defer indefinitely. Whether they come to class. Whether the lesson I prepared with care lands the way I hoped.
This is not a reason to stop caring about outcomes. It is a reason to stop locating your sense of professional adequacy entirely in outcomes you cannot control.
The Lesson That Falls Flat
Every teacher has this experience. You have planned well. The warm-up is engaging, the sequence is logical, the examples are authentic, the practice tasks are meaningful. And somehow, the lesson dies. Students are disengaged. The energy is wrong. The timing collapses.
A teacher with no Stoic framework will do one of two things: blame themselves (I am a terrible teacher) or blame the students (they are not motivated). Both responses are inaccurate and both are expensive. The first erodes confidence. The second erodes empathy. Neither improves the next lesson.
A Stoic framework allows a third response: observe what happened without judgment, identify what was within your control, adjust the variables you can adjust, and accept that some failures are not attributable to any error you made or could have made.
Living This, Not Just Thinking It
I should be honest: this is not easy. I have ADHD, which means my attention is more volatile than it appears from outside. I have bipolar disorder, which means some days the emotional amplifier is turned up past anything I would choose. On those days, the Stoic practice is not comfortable and not calm. It is effortful. It requires active, repeated, deliberate return to what I can and cannot control.
But that is exactly what the Stoics were describing. Marcus Aurelius was not writing from a position of effortless equanimity. He was writing to himself, reminding himself, because he needed the reminders. The Meditations are a practitioner’s notes on the practice of not being swept away by things outside your control.
A Practical Ritual
Before each lesson, one question: what in this hour is genuinely up to me? Answer it clearly. Let the rest go as much as you can. After each lesson, the same question — not did it work? but did I do what was mine to do? These are different questions, and the difference matters enormously over a teaching career.
Related reading: My Mental Health Journey — on managing neurodivergence and mood disorders in a professional context. And if you want Stoic principles applied to specific lesson design, the ELT Masterclass series makes them concrete.