A researcher's agony: Five moments in the collaborative research journey

A teacher educator, because of her doctoral studies, began a collaborative research journey of almost two years with a group of primary school teachers and principals. Action Research as critical, collaborative and recursive transformed the researcher’s story into "a non-personal affair". The researcher consistently kept two sets of reflective journals contributing to part of the data collected. She shared these reflective notes in a wider arena so that more people not only understood what the research was about, but also wished to echo the voices elicited from the teachers, the principals and the researcher. The paper critically examines five moments in the researcher’s living encounter within a context of curriculum change. These moments portrayed a reflexive account of the researcher’s story that authenticated the meaning of collaborative inquiry to the "real" world of teachers. The paper concludes by delivering a message of HOPE which would exist in people who strive for developing a sense of empowerment and reconstructing teacher curriculum decision-making as both the means and ends of leading to new conceptions and practices of curriculum leadership.