Courage Is Learned Together: Why Professional Development is the Heart of Media Literacy Education

Opening Essay | MediaEd Insights | Back to School: Reflections on Teacher Education Edition | September 2026

Written by Yonty Friesem

Ask teachers why they aren't teaching media literacy, and the answer is rarely that they think it doesn't matter. Most believe it matters a great deal. What holds them back is fear. They worry about not knowing enough about the latest platform, meme, or AI tool. They worry about being asked about a news story they haven't had time to unpack. Above all, they worry about what happens when a conversation about media representation turns into a conversation about politics, identity, or values. In a room full of students with sharply different opinions, and in a polarized moment, a lesson on a viral video can feel less like a teaching opportunity and more like a minefield.

That fear is reasonable. Most teachers were never trained to lead what some call difficult conversations and what I prefer to call courageous conversations. Teacher preparation programs rarely teach how to analyze contemporary media representations. They rarely teach how to keep inquiry open when students bring partisan certainty into the room, or how to model curiosity rather than judgment. This is exactly why professional development is not an add-on to media literacy education. It is the foundation.

Good professional development does not hand teachers a script. It gives them practice. Educators analyze media together, rehearse the moves of facilitation, and make mistakes among colleagues. Along the way, they discover that they don't need to be experts on every platform to guide their students' inquiry. Confidence in teaching media literacy is built the same way media literacy itself is built: through questioning, dialogue, and reflection in the company of others. When a community of learners explores and inquires together, individual fear becomes shared courage.

The other three entries in this month's MediaEd Insights show what that looks like in practice. Michele Johnsen, Monika Hanley, and Catherine Morris reflect on the Media Literacy Institute they taught this August for the University of Washington College of Education. The week-long online program was offered in partnership with the Media Education Lab. It helped K–12 educators apply media literacy frameworks to AI and practice leading classroom discussions on uncomfortable subjects. Next, a research brief summarizes the landscape report that the Media Education Lab and Media Literacy Now prepared for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The report drew on interviews with 46 educators, a survey of 1,275 teachers, and a panel of 97 experts. It found that Massachusetts teachers value media literacy highly, yet many have only a partial understanding of it and few know about available professional development. Some also hesitate to bring contentious news into their classrooms because of political polarization.

Finally, the two graduate student organizers, Salome Apkhazishvili and Alexandra Thrall, offer a case study of the 2026 MediaEd Graduate Symposium. The Symposium is a monthly virtual leadership program that runs from May through October. Master's and doctoral students learn about the history, theory, policy, and research methods of media education from leading scholars, then contribute their own scholarship as Media Education Lab Fellows. Taken together, the three pieces make the same argument from different angles: teachers, researchers, and emerging scholars grow when they learn alongside one another.

This conviction is not new for the Media Education Lab. Under the leadership of Professor Renee Hobbs, the Lab has been at the forefront of professional development since the 1990s. That decade, the Harvard Institute on Media Education at Harvard University brought educators together for intensive summer learning while the field was still taking shape. Later, Renee Hobbs and Julie Coiro co-founded the Summer Institute in Digital Literacy at the University of Rhode Island. Participants have described this hands-on, minds-on experience as summer camp for grown-ups. Its model of collaborative, inquiry-driven learning was recognized in the 2016 National Education Technology Plan, published by the U.S. Department of Education.

What has made this work successful is not any single program but a commitment to community. In Iraqi Kurdistan, a team of the Lab along with Kurdish journalists visited seven universities and polytechnic schools. Together they developed a five-year plan that begins by supporting the local educators who train the next generation of journalists. This last spring, at the MediaEd Research Jam at Northwestern University's Medill School, 20 practitioners, scholars, librarians, teachers, and graduate students shared works in progress through speed pitching and poster sessions. One of the provocations guiding their work asked how media literacy ethics can help bridge political divides. Year after year, the MediaEd Forum has convened educators to exchange practice. And during a turbulent time, Together We Rise, created by Marie Celestin and Renee Hobbs, offered educators a weekly circle of care, media analysis, and creative expression. Each of these efforts rests on the same principle: people learn best when they are connected to others who share their questions.

That principle now guides our next chapter. The Media Education Lab is currently focusing on the new Pause2MAP initiative (Pause, Manage, Analyze, Participate). We are planning professional development for staff and faculty to implement this social media literacy prevention program in schools around the world. The work builds on a workshop we piloted with the University of San Diego, where middle school students and their parents worked through real social media scenarios together. It also builds on our work in five educational settings in São Paulo, Brazil. Pause2MAP does not rely on bans and warnings. Instead, it helps adults and students reach mutual agreements through ongoing dialogue about the challenges of social media. It asks of families and schools what we ask of teachers in every professional development program we offer: to pause, to listen, and to find the courage to learn together.

MediaEd Insights | Back to School: Reflections on Teacher Education Edition | September 2026

Opening Essay: Courage Is Learned Together: Why Professional Development Is the Heart of Media Literacy Education by Yonty Friesem

Review: Collaborative, Responsive, and Future-Focused: Reflections on the Media Literacy Institute by Michele Johnsen, Monika Hanley, and Catherine Morris  

Case Study: By Students, For Students: Building Community at the MediaEd Graduate Symposium by Allie Thrall and Salome Apkhazishvili

Research Brief: What's Going on with Media Literacy in Massachusetts: A Landscape Scan by Media Literacy Now and the Media Education Lab