Swimming in the Deep End
by Jennifer Abrams

Author Jennifer Abrams brings a strong and compelling desire to push educators to lead with integrity within their everyday work. She lays out four foundational skills any educator needs to utilize as they do the hard work of bringing large change in schools. This text can benefit anyone: teachers, teacher teams, coaches, administrators, district leadership, etc to create change in classrooms, buildings and districts. The work starts with you, the educator and your desire to do the work!

I have been spending the better part of two years critically examining the importance of language. Both using language and listening to language are critical to my work as an instructional coach. The language I listen for conveys thinking and emotion from others. This allows me to do my best work: sharing my best thinking, posing my best questions, eliciting the best reflection from myself and other educators I serve. This text has given me space to dive deeper into the importance of language. The author goes deep into thinking before we speak, preempting and responding to resistance with our language. Most importantly, Jennifer Abrams, asks us to examine ourselves and our language. She asks us to reflect on how we manage our resilience to the work, our reflection of how our emotions and thoughts give rise to our best language. To this end, I have been most grateful to have been given this text.

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