Becoming an Engineering Education Researcher: Intersections, extensions and lessons learned among three researchers stories

http://www.ce.umn.edu/~smith/docs/Adams-Fleming-Smith-Becoming_an_engineering_education_researcher-ICREE2007.pdf

This article tells three very different and very interesting stories about becoming an engineering education researcher (EER).
It contains three narrative stories about doing something not well understood or accepted but very rewarding, a pioneer in a new field as it were. Pioneers are said to be on exciting, rejected, surprise laden, risk filled journeys and live sometimes short but often quite fulfilled lives. One of the best stories I have ever read is Endurance : Shackleton's Incredible Voyage Alfred Lansing (Preface). It is a narrative. 

Narratives are defined in the article by referring to Bruner (1991) as
-taking place over some sense of time
-dealing with particular events
-having characters that have beliefs, values, desires, theories...
-being interpretted personally and publically
-about something unusual
-providing information on the reality of the narrative
-generic as to be classified as to genre
-making a claim about how to act
-providing meaning to the reader through sharing the discourse
-become part of a shared body of knowledge

I believe narratives are among the most powerful influencers in our lives and i can recall narratives ( stories) told by my uncles, father and mother as if they were talking to me at this moment.
After reading this article I feel closer to Karl Smith and Robin Adams because they have shared their life stories with me.

 I am interested in learning and sharing our EER stories. If anyone else is interested let's talk.
dan