One need not scroll very far on TikTok’s #teachertok or YouTube’s #teacherlife to find talented educator-comedians poking fun at professional development. In one clip, a PD facilitator answers a question about her teaching experience with, “No, I’ve never actually taught. But I shadowed a 6th grade class once during career week . . . so I totally get it” (Myteacherface, 2025). Later in the bit, teachers fill out “PD bingo” cards as the facilitator mindlessly says the phrases “flipped classroom,” “rigor and relevance,” and “learning ecosystem.”
In another, an “honest” educator tells their administrator, “You pay someone to come in and train us, but because you give us such little time to plan, prep, and be in our classrooms, nobody’s listening. When we’re looking at our laptops, we’re on Google Drive and putting together our rosters, we’re just taking notes on our to-do lists . . . like the whole time” (Teachingwithalexa, 2024). The administrator reacts with a shocked face.
When I teach parody, I tell high schoolers that for this sort of humor to land, the exaggeration has to be rooted in truth. And these PD jokes are both rooted in truth and, essentially, fair. While I crack up at these videos, they’re more “window” than “mirror” for me. My principal does a good job, and he protects our staff from a lot of what we would normally have to deal with.
Still, when we boil the jokes down to their essence, we have to admit that: Yes, PD facilitators too often have considerably less classroom experience than the people they are “training.” Yes, every year introduces us to fresh buzzwords that are used more than they seem to be understood. Yes, teachers long for time in their classrooms to get stuff done. Yet every year, we look up at the clock as someone we don’t know opines on something that doesn’t apply to us. The cynicism may not be healthy, but it is well-earned.
As reluctant as we are to change merely “for changes’ sake,” we do recognize that both the tools and methodologies of our profession do change, and that we must adapt. We know that our students deserve as much. It’s just that what passes for professional development in too many spaces isn’t as useful as non-classroom teachers assume it to be. Once we admit this, the search for more productive models can begin.
There are no ice breakers, few canned jokes, no turn and talks to help coaches 'find their why' before getting to the thing.
A Playbook for Success
Athletic coaches might have something to offer to this conversation. I’ve attended more than a few coaching clinics for football and basketball and have watched hundreds of YouTube videos filmed during such events. It’s hard not to compare how open and receptive coaches are at clinics to how many teachers react to PD. While it’s not fair to make an apples-to-apples comparison (coaches, for instance, often pay for clinics, while teachers have to attend PD), I do think that a lot of the same stuff that makes coaching clinics successful can work for PD.
Lesson 1: They have experience.
The presenters at coaching clinics are nearly always active coaches. Their first few words lay out where they coach, how long they have coached, and how many titles they’ve won. Coaches at clinics never wonder whether what is being shown to them has ever actually worked with a real team in a real competition because the evidence is clear. It may not work with our team, but it has worked with somebody. And maybe, with a few tweaks, some of it can work with our players, too. I am not sure if non-classroom teachers truly understand how disqualifying a lack of teaching experience can be in a PD facilitator. This is especially true if simple solutions (Just build relationships! Use this AI tool!) are being offered. We’ve got to know that whatever is being shown has a record of working—in any context.
Lesson 2: They get to the point.
When coaches arrive for a clinic session, they get exactly what they signed up for. A veteran basketball coach might want fresher transition drills, or a young football coach might want to better understand zone blitz schemes. Seconds after establishing their credentials, the presenting coach gets right to that specific thing. There are no ice breakers, few canned jokes, no turn and talks to help coaches “find their why” before getting to the thing. On the other hand, classroom teachers expecting a session on equitable grading techniques might end up being asked to examine their privilege for 45 minutes before getting to the techniques! This meandering quest to the thing sends a message that our time is not valuable, a slight that teachers are understandably very sensitive about.
Lesson 3: They offer live demonstrations.
In many clinics—especially basketball clinics—a mic’d-up coach is directly working with a group of athletes, who usually do not know whatever is being presented. In front of everyone, this presenter actively teaches the drill (or play, or whatever) to these athletes, correcting their mistakes as they go (FIBA Basketball, 2025). This approach has multiple benefits: Attendees can see how the skill or concept is taught, how certain mistakes are corrected, and how much success to reasonably expect. While coaches will often “get on the board” and draw up drills and schemes, they almost never build an entire clinic session around such “chalk talk.” When coaches see live demonstrations, they can put themselves into the presenter’s shoes, saying to themselves, “If a player does that, what would I say? Oh, I could say that. Cool.”
I, for one, spend an inordinate amount of time scouring the internet for examples of classroom race conversations (both good and bad) that I can invite teachers to “break down” like game film. This fall, the University of Pennsylvania paid a group of my sophomores to sit in on graduate classes one night, participating in mock discussions and offering feedback to apprentice teachers. Recently, Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater invited a group of young actors in their all-stars program to help teaching artists model certain activities and share their youthful perspectives on a play that my students would soon be seeing. These are only a few of the ways that modeling in PD can be as authentic as the live demonstrations in a coaches clinic.
This is not to oversimplify the problem of PD. But I do believe if PD presenters took a page or two from the playbook that brings athletic coaches such consistent success, we might start the process of relegitimizing it, or at the very least, make easy cracks at PD just a bit harder for online comedians.
