Woven Together

I’ll admit: I rolled my eyes when I saw yet another book about ‘teacher identity.’ But *Woven Together* disarmed me within minutes—partly because of Sanya Simmons’ narration, which strikes the perfect balance between authoritative and approachable. She leans into Rose’s dry humor (like when Rose calls out the ‘white lady voice’ she once adopted to be taken seriously) and slows down for the gut-punch moments, like the story of a student who only engaged after Rose shared her own family’s history with segregation. The production is clean, with no distracting edits, though I wished for slightly more pauses between chapters to digest Rose’s heavier reflections. What sets this apart from other education audiobooks is its *specificity*. Rose doesn’t just tell you to ‘be authentic’—she walks through how her Jamaican heritage informs her discipline style, or how she navigates being the only Black teacher in a predominantly white school. The pacing drags slightly in Chapter 4, where the self-reflection exercises feel repetitive if you’re listening passively (this is a book to pause and journal with, not zone out to on a commute). But the payoff comes in the final sections, where Rose ties identity work to tangible classroom strategies, like her ‘cultural mirror’ activity that had me scribbling notes. It’s not a how-to for lesson plans; it’s a how-to for *showing up*—messy, human, and fully present—as the teacher your students need.