Drawing on conceptualisations of transformational professional learning as including activist (Sachs, 2016) and transformative (Mockler, 2022) dimensions of professionalism, this seminar will report on a doctoral study of teachers’ lived experiences of engaging in critical intellectual and research work through part-time MA Education. These experiences were systematically mapped and interrogated over 24 months, from the beginning of their dissertation project to 12+ months following completion of their MA. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and video diaries, culminating in the construction of first-person narratives. Using Ricœur’s (1980) hypothesis of narrative and temporality, a ‘grasping together’ of significant episodes across these teachers’ narratives unlocked an understanding of their shared journeys as ‘becoming’, ‘being’ and ‘belonging’ as a teacher and a researcher. Subsequent analysis exposes how their engagement in Master’s level research proved a site for potential transformational professional learning, a contrast to descriptions of ‘usual’ professional development activity characterised by one teacher as ‘doing not thinking’.