I’ve attended my share of professional development sessions as an educator. Too often, I’ve walked away asking the same question: Is this really how we expect teachers to learn?
I still remember one session on trauma-informed teaching held in a school cafeteria. The tables and attached seats were too small for most of us, while the lights hummed overhead. For two and a half hours, the facilitator read from an endless slide deck about the importance of connection and empathy. There was minimal context building, limited discussion and no reflection. By the end, the facilitator smiled and said, “Now you are all trauma-informed teachers!” I think my eyes rolled so far back they almost stayed there.
Sitting and listening to someone talk for 45 to 60 minutes is not learning, let alone two and a half hours. My body knows it before my brain does. I get restless, my mind drifts, I check the time and take a walk to refill my water bottle. In that first hour, disappointment sets in fast.
Minimal conditions for adult learning have become the norm. I used to resent that; now I fear it. Because the longer I sat in those breakout rooms, the quieter I became. My curiosity dulled, the topic's urgency faded and I started doing what was expected: showing up, signing in and leaving seemingly unchanged. That terrified me. I could feel myself becoming the kind of learner I never wanted my students to be. Even the most dedicated teachers can wilt in the wrong conditions.
And here’s what often goes unspoken: teachers already give so much of their time to these sessions, spending hours after school on professional days and during planning periods. That investment deserves more than compliance-based sessions that leave teachers unchanged or walking away with a checklist of “next steps” that never take root.
After experiences like that, I find myself returning to familiar questions: Why do we accept for ourselves what we would never accept for our students? What if we taught students the way we teach teachers? We’d call it ineffective, parents would complain and administrators would intervene. Yet, the same approach is accepted for teachers’ professional development: lecture-heavy, one-size-fits-all and compliance-driven. I knew better for my students and kept accepting less for myself. That contradiction began to haunt me.
As a high school English teacher, I built lessons around engagement, differentiation and relevance so students could connect learning to their lives. They deserved instruction that met them where they were and balanced support with challenge. When it comes to teaching teachers, we need the same shift — from professional development done to us, to professional learning created by, for and with us.
A Different Way Exists
I remember one of the first times I felt what real professional learning could be. Around 2013, when Edcamp was spreading across schools, my administrators used this format for one of our PD days. These grassroots “unconferences” turned the familiar model upside down. There were no pre-approved presenters or hour-by-hour agendas. Teachers built the schedule on the spot and moved freely between conversations. If one wasn’t helpful, you left and found another. The emphasis was on curiosity and choice.
I led two sessions that day: one on digital tools for learning and another on equitable grading. I didn’t stand in front of the group; I sat in the circle. We tested tools in real time, pried into long-held grading beliefs and argued about what being fair really means in high school grading. What I remember most wasn’t the content but the energy in the room and the buzz of teachers thinking, building, disagreeing and learning together.
It was the first time I realized how much trust professional learning requires: trust in teachers’ intelligence, instincts and creativity. We talk so much about empowering students, but rarely about empowering teachers. Edcamp, brief as it was, made me wonder what would happen if we trusted educators the way we expect them to trust their students.
That lesson deepened through the Rhode Island Writing Project at Rhode Island College, where “teachers teaching teachers” wasn’t a slogan but a practice. During the summer institute, I joined a community of educators from across the state. We wrote together, shared feedback and listened, really listened, to each other’s classroom stories and the complex and messy overlap between personal and professional life.
That summer changed me. I saw what it meant to honor teacher knowledge, and to treat professional learning as a dialogue, not delivery. It ruined me, in the best way. Once you’ve experienced learning that is alive, reciprocal and demanding, it’s hard to sit quietly again while someone reads from slides.
But here’s what I know: those moments were rare. Outliers.
Most professional development since that summer has looked more like paperwork than pedagogy. Neatly packaged, disconnected and efficient to a fault. For many educators, PD is still something that happens to them, not with them. I’ve seen what that does. It breeds cynicism and convinces brilliant teachers that their professional growth is optional, even disposable. Novice and veteran teachers alike found ways to get through or get by during especially disconnected sessions. Not out of defiance, but self-preservation.
As a district administrator, I find myself in a very different position where I receive more structured opportunities for professional learning than I ever did in the classroom. I attend multi-day workshops on leadership frameworks, statewide coaching institutes and even regional conferences focused on instructional design. They’re well-planned, reflective, energizing and respectful of participants' needs. Nothing like the one-off PowerPoints teachers sit through during the school day or after school.
That contrast is hard to ignore. It reminds me just how uneven our systems can be. The higher up you go, the more development you’re offered; the closer you are to students, the less you get.
I carry that discomfort with me every day. I think about the teachers in sessions I once led or attended who expressed their skepticism and tiredness of being told what to value or what new requirement to add to their already stacked list of classroom responsibilities. My job now is to make sure the professional learning I help design never repeats that pattern — that it respects their time, their expertise and their humanity. I don’t want them to feel the quiet resignation I once did.
This problem runs deeper than any one district or leader. A recent report from the Annenberg Institute at Brown University affirmed Rhode Island’s commitment to investing in professional learning. The report highlights state-level efforts such as expanding instructional coaching, building in common planning time and fostering cross-district collaboration. These are the supports I wish I’d had years ago.
The report also reminded me of what I’ve seen firsthand: resources and structures only work when the design honors teachers’ time and trust.
How We Teach Teachers
How we design professional learning makes visible the value we place on teachers. When PD is treated as a formality, the message is that teacher growth is optional. But when it’s treated as authentic learning, the message is clear: adult learning matters, and investing in teachers is investing in students.
If we want professional learning that serves educators and the students they teach, we must move beyond seat time and toward structures that honor teacher expertise and foster continuous improvement. The elements of strong professional learning aren’t mysteries; they mirror the same principles of good teaching.
A few approaches that work include teacher-led inquiry cycles that invite educators to identify problems of practice and design solutions together; offering choice and voice in sessions that make learning relevant and personalized; building in time for application and reflection; and creating job-embedded opportunities where teachers can learn in context alongside their colleagues and students.
The future of our profession will be defined by what we choose right now and whether we can model the kind of learning we say we want for our students.
