This paper explores the methodological significance and implications of the classroom researcher’s earlier teacher experiences in various stages of the research process. The starting point is the often mentioned notion, in methodological discussions, that being familiar with school practices as a school ethnographer is problematic when doing school ethnography, as this familiarity might blur the ethnographer’s gaze. Consequently, emphasis has been put on the necessity to “make the familiar strange” in order to be able to discern for example norms, values, habits and patterns of interaction that is taken for granted in the practice studied (Gordon, 2001). In these discussions earlier experiences of being a teacher are labeled as something problematic that the researcher has got to distance herself/himself from. In this paper I give a more complex picture of the significance and implications of the researcher’s earlier teacher experiences, which is outlined in two steps. Firstly, different categories of teacher experiences are pointed out. Secondly, an exploration of how these different categories of teacher experiences are at work in various stages of the ethnographic research process, where examples from a recently finished research project are given.