An accident, time out, and a curriculum revival : renewed visions of living and learning using narratives of experience, poetic inquiry, and art-based research

Abstract

This narrative inquiry self-study focuses on my experience of sustaining a severe head injury and making my way back to a new normal life over a 2 to 3-year period. As is the case in self-study research, it is a personal tale that contributes one person's experience to the body of work on sustaining and recovering from a head injury and how the effects of head injury are perceived and felt personally and professionally over time. I use Connelly and Clandinin's (1994)definition of curriculum as being comprised of all of life's experience and their narrative framework for placing experience across time to ground my study. In my text, I share stories of situations and events that offer insights into sustaining a head injury and living through periods of recovery where I spent many months at home unable to fully process or engage in the life going on around me. I describe my gradual return to family, friends, research, and teaching after a 20-month absence when, even then, I had trouble coping with the effects of my head injury .Along with the stories of experience that form part of my text, I also include poems and visual art pieces that extend the story into the emotional realm I inhabited during this time. These works were completed both prior to and during this time period. I use these methods, as they are central to my work as a narrative and poetic inquirer and an art-based researcher. By focusing my study on this particular time in my life, I hope to bring clarity to my own understanding of the extent of changes sustaining a head injury has had on my life and those of my family. At the same time, I believe my study offers an example of one person's experience of head injury to others who seek to comprehend the effects of head injury beyond statistical accounts and summations. I believe this study will be of use to professionals who teach, support, counsel, and help rehabilitate those who live with an acquired head injury.