Playfully courted a teacher (8)
I believe the answer is:
educator
'teacher' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'playfully courted a' is the wordplay.
'playfully' indicates an anagram (I've seen this in other clues).
'courted'+'a'='courteda'
'courteda' is an anagram of 'EDUCATOR'.
(Other definitions for educator that I've seen before include "Trainer, teacher" , "One who teaches others" , "master, say" , "Teacher, lecturer" , "mistress, say" .)