My Experience with Illiberal Education
By E. Dean Cozzens, M.Ed., Colorado State University, 2002

Publisher’s Note.

On Saturday, April 3^rd, Phyllis Schlafly interviewed Dean Gotcher of the Institute for Authority Research on her weekly national broadcast from 11 a.m. to noon on the Bott Broadcasting Network. In a nutshell, the interview was about how a Marxist version of the Hegalian Dialectic Process has been instituted in America’s educational system through Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000 and School-to-Work.

Shortly after the program I received a call from Mr. Dean Cozzens in Kansas City who proceeded to inquire about our Who’s Pulling Your Strings Diaprax Conference on April 30-May 1 at Liberty Christian Church in O’Fallon, MO. Mr. Gotcher and two members of his institute will be giving a seminar on how this Marxist version of the Dialectic has infiltrated not just education, but business, law enforcement, politics, the same-sex marriage and environmental issues debates, and even the Church.

During our conversation Mr. Cozzens related that he sympathized with those teachers and administrators who were being forced (at the threat of losing their jobs) to relinquish their firmly held Christian beliefs and no longer teach facts and truth but, instead, be nothing more than social facilitators that teach children that truth and facts are relative and train children on how to become obedient, humanistic socialists. He also related his own personal experience with this evil system, which is destroying our culture and our nation. The following is his true story.

My Experience with Illiberal Education

I grew up in a Christian family, on a farm, in northern Colorado.  I attended a small rural school two miles from our home, six miles NE of Greeley, Colorado.  There were at any given time from 6 to 8 students in each of my first through sixth grades, mostly all the same students -- we grew up together.  We all knew each other's parents, brothers and sisters, and yes even their dogs, cars and farm trucks.

That school, like most at that time in America, especially in rural areas, was a true public school, a true community school, where the parents elected friends they knew and trusted to serve on the school board.  That board then governed the school on everyone’s behalf, hired and yes even fired teachers, and led the effort in the education of everyone's children.  The teachers answered to the parents.

My own great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, all served at one time or another on the school board.  My grandfather, father and older sister all graduated from that rural school as eighth graders.  By the time I attended in the late fifties and early sixties, there were six grades and three teachers, with each teacher simultaneously teaching two grades in the same classroom.  It worked well.

I went on to complete junior and senior high in a larger school in a nearby town.  My high school graduating class numbered just 77.  We all knew each other, and most of where everyone else lived and who their parents were.  It was great.

Then I went on to earn a business degree at the land grant university in our mostly conservative state, graduating in 1974.

Years later, my desire to work with young people in their career selections led me back to Colorado State University (CSU) to work on a Master's Degree in Education, specializing in Counseling and Career Development.  I was finally awarded my degree in 2002, though I did the bulk of my classroom work in the early 90s.

During my time at CSU, in the early 90s, our school earned a grant from the Federal government to conduct a study to see what the benefits or problems might be with using older mentors for at-risk high school students at nearby Fort Collins High.  About 40 CSU students were needed to serve as part-time mentors for the at-risk students.  My advisor, a decent man, suggested that I apply for the position, which I did.  It would require about ten hours of time a week and paid very little.

At my interview for the position, one of the men conducting the study, a Ph.D. candidate, asked me if my religious beliefs would in any way interfere with the program? I was a bit puzzled by the question, thinking to myself, "Why in the world would it?"  I was naive.

I was selected to be a mentor.  A training session was set up for all 40 of us.  The session lasted one day, on a Saturday as I recall and I enjoyed it.

On Monday I was called in to meet with the three Ph.D. candidates who were conducting the study.  When I walked into the room something felt uncomfortable.  All three of them sat across the table from me scowling at me.  What in the world had I done?

Then they began, interrogating me about my beliefs, checking to see where I stood on various areas of their political correctness.  (Who made up these rules anyhow and how in the world have they enacted them as the new laws of the land without any of our consent?)  I answered graciously and after 30-45 minutes or so I was allowed to leave.  It felt like I had been called before a tribunal in a totalitarian nation.

On Tuesday I was called in for a second meeting with the director of some part of the program.  She told me that she had been a Lutheran pastor's wife but was no longer.  I think their marriage broke up or something.  She tried to tell me that she was a Christian but....

On Wednesday I was called in to meet with yet another person and was told that they were going to have to fire me from the position.  I asked why. The lady told me, "Well, we are afraid that you as a Christian might counsel students not to have premarital sex, and we can't risk that.  You also might counsel students not to have abortions, and we can't risk that.  And, you might counsel students not to experiment with homosexuality, and we can't risk that, so we're going to have to let you go."

I was devastated.  It took me a month or more to emotionally process what had happened -- it all seemed so unfair and indecent.  How could this country's institutions have fallen this far?  This was a university that my Christian farmer ancestor's hard earned taxes had paid for.  If the citizens of Colorado had known this was happening at their state’s agricultural and supposedly conservative university, what would they have thought?  My own parents were shocked.

About that time someone suggested that I read Scott Peck's excellent book, People of the Lie.  It’s a study of evil.  In the book Dr. Peck, after writing the bestselling The Road Less Traveled, records his own pilgrimage in facing up to evil only to become a Christian in the end.  Apparently after a thinking person clearly faces evil, the need for a Savior becomes more apparent.  That's what happened to Dr. Peck.

In that book, Peck explains that when good people are encountered by evil, they are emotionally shocked.  I could relate to that.  Part of their shock is that they cannot make sense of the evil, but they keep trying in their goodness to understand it, but it just doesn’t compute.  Dr. Peck explained that it is impossible for good people to make sense of evil, because evil is neither reasonable nor logical.  Evil just is not rational to a good-minded person.

We have reached a point in this nation when much evil has become institutionalized, especially in our schools and universities.  It now dictates much thought there, which is difficult for Christians to comprehend.  How far things have fallen in some places is unbelievable and deeply saddening for right-minded people.  Now we know from personal experience what it means when the scriptures say that Noah was vexed by the evils around him in his day.  It is sad and grievous to comprehend.  Jesus was a man of sorrows, and so must we become, if we are to follow Him in this day.  There is much to be sad about.  But, we do have the wonderful promise that “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted,” and in that comfort God will reveal answers and solace.  I think we all need to do more grieving and more crying out, until God's real answers come.  Hit your knees and cry out.

E. Dean Cozzens is now an educational consultant living in the Kansas City area who works with individual clients and Christian schools. Mr. Cozzens may be contacted by writing him at deancozzens@juno.com.