Education:
I've attended colleges and universities all over the place: San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Honolulu, Guam and Boulder, Colorado. I've been a family counselor and community college instructor. I spent the longest time at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I did my doctorate in Educational-Psychological Studies, and also directed a research project for the FAA to study training issues in the advanced commercial airline cockpit. (see below)
Writing and Research:
I am interested in public education in the United States from the earliest days of our republic to present-day classrooms. I studied teachers and technology in some depth during the mid-1990s when the Internet was being introduced into classrooms. I continue to work out my ideas, along with those of my collaborator, Mr. Sage, by means of informal writing--some of which do seem more like rants. The links to my dissertation, along with other unpublished writing, can be found below.
The primary thrust of my interest and efforts is a book called Trojan Horse in the Classroom, What Goes on in Schools and Why You Should Care. Mr. Sage, mentioned above, is the first author, and supplies the first-hand account representing over five years in high school and junior high classrooms as a substitute teacher and tutor for this school. (Mr. Sage previously taught at the elementary school level for twenty years, and his experience and credibility make possible his unique role in revealing the ugly aspects of how schools work.)
Warning: Documents noted as "pdf" below are rather large, and will open with Adobe Reader if you have it installed on your computer, or click this i
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Academic Writing (in connection with dissertation and FAA studies):
Dissertation of Sharon McLennan (pdf): Teachers, Internet and Schools: Case Studies of Challenge and Change (1997)--an ethnographic work reflecting the input of 13 rural teachers
Encounters with teachers (who tell it like it is): Both Mr. Sage and Karen were informants for my doctoral study. Read their accounts, below, and understand some of what real teachers really do, and how these teachers feel about researchers--especially this "researcher from hell." The interview with Mr. Sage, a fourth grade teacher in a middle school located on a reservation, and the portrait of Karen, a teacher in rural Missouri, provide startling insights into their world. Indeed, one of the goals of the interviewer (SM) was to acquire material/evidence for a major underpinning of the doctoral thesis: Teacher Change. Yes, my work was focused on the internet because it was coming into the schools during the early 1990s, and I wanted to know how teachers were adopting the new technology--or not. I put this under the construct of "teacher change" and proceeded to document a dozen teachers' response to the mandate (or sometimes their own desire) to get the internet into their classroom and incorporate it into their teaching.
With these accounts, I feel I hit pay dirt. Each is linked below:
>>Mr Sage: an interview with the researcher from hell
>>Karen: a personal, blow-by-blow account of one rural teacher's battles to get Internet into her school (ca. 1994)
Also, here is an account of one individual who [gasp!] didn't graduate from high school.
Other articles on schooling
The FAA research study:
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Final Report (pdf)
See what's in my home library at
Oh, and Sharon is a ham (in more ways than one).
and, finally:
I am committed to reason, compassion, science, and rationally-based
public policies designed to promote sustainable societies
through a balancing of population size and resource use.
I reject authority when it usurps critical thinking;
thus I reject the obeisance to compulsory, public K-12 education.