As a classroom teacher, I was largely ignorant of, and definitely suspicious of, research. I believed
that researchers could make their studies come out any way they wanted them to, and that a good
teacher who reflected on her own teaching knew much more about how to be effective with her
students than any researcher did. Later, as a university professor, I learned how important good
research can be, and how difficult it is to do really good experimental research in a field such as
education, where it is impossible to control all the variables.