Pumpkins ripened this week and Bernie released a video praising teachers as working from “the bottom up.” Plus bellydancing creationists, protesting students at Liberty U, teaching for Trump, and a whole lot more in our weekly roundup:

Why don’t more kids learn about evolution? At the Atlantic.

The only high-school biology class I took was in ninth grade, and it was apparently so uninteresting to me that I don’t remember my teacher’s name. (My former school district did not return a request for comment.) My teachers were for the most part religious, though they appeared to stay firmly within the bounds of the state-mandated curriculum. In another class, my teacher showed us diagrams of the human eye, then snuck in a remark that the complexity of the eye is convincing evidence that there is a Creator.

Can schools save society? Larry Cuban reflects.

I used to think that public schools were vehicles for reforming society. And now I think that while good teachers and schools can promote positive intellectual, behavioral, and social change in individual children and youth, schools are (and have been) ineffectual in altering social inequalities.

Have evangelical colleges avoided the “comfort college” dilemma? At PS.

In my classes and others, in faculty and student research, I see nothing like what Gerrard calls “the devaluing of knowledge” or “social death” for those on the wrong side of “wokeness.” In the humanities at Bethel, I see people continuing to ask complicated questions of themselves, each other, and the authors and audiences of the texts they read, with humility, hospitality, empathy, and in no expectation that things will resolve neatly. We make each other uncomfortable, make mistakes together, apologize to each other, and continue to seek better answers together.

“Evangelical” has lost its meaning, says Alan Jacobs at The Atlantic.

of all the traits that attracted evangelicals to Reagan, perhaps the most important was his sunny and fervent patriotism. Already white American evangelicals had a tendency to associate Christianity closely with the American experiment, and to think of their country as a “Christian nation.” . . . This transformation of evangelical from a theological position to a “racial and political” one is not just bad for serious Christians; it’s also a prime driver of the increasing hostility of liberals to religion in almost any form.

• You can’t lose something you never had. Short notes on the difficulty of defining “evangelical” here at ILYBYGTH.

No evangelicals among the Blue Devils: Duke students reject Young Life as anti-LGBTQ. At RNS.

the student government senate unanimously turned down official recognition for the Young Life chapter, because it appeared to violate a guideline that every Duke student group include a nondiscrimination statement in its constitution.

Liberty U students against Falwell Jr. At NPR.

We organized this protest in response to both articles that dropped this week. We really are protesting President Falwell’s habitual behavior of – various allegations of misconduct, especially ones of sexual harassment, and the habitual abuse of his subordinates as well as students and various Christian leaders that he’s attacked on Twitter as well.

Turkish creationist Harun Yahya goes on trial for running a blackmail cult. At NCSE.

• A useful reminder that “creationism” is bigger than the American stereotype. With bellydancing “kittens.” Here at ILYBYGTH.

How a science teacher should answer a radical creationist, at AU.

“This is science, and science deals with facts. It doesn’t deal with belief. It doesn’t have to be a dilemma or a concern for someone to choose between Christianity and evolution – that’s not what this is about. You can actually embrace both. It’s my duty as a teacher to teach science and not teach religion. That’s the separation of church and state.”

Conservatives win one in the wedding-cake LGBTQ wars. At AZC.

Duka and Koski create invitations and other handmade artwork for weddings and events. The women — who hold the religious belief that marriage should only be between one man and one woman — do not want to design invitations or other custom artwork for LGBTQ couples because they believe it would be the equivalent of endorsing the marriage.

The women are represented by Scottsdale-based Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative legal group challenging similar laws across the country.

Check out the connection between $$ and quality in Ohio’s public schools. HT: PG.

How to get fired in Fort Worth. A teacher loses her job for tweeting to Trump to do “anything you can do to remove the illegals from Fort Worth.” At DN.

Florida Man (and Woman) had one heck of a night, at USAT.

A Florida couple is facing multiple charges after they started having sex in the back of a police car — after they were already under arrest on DUI charges.

How do religious scientists feel about non-religious ones? Insights from Tolstoy at JTA.

The problem is that those of us who have an abiding religious faith also believe in science. . . . We recognize that you present an objective truth, and that your approach is worthy of careful deliberation. But we get little in return. When you look at us, you can barely conceal your contempt. What you see is little more than confusion, superstition and folly.

Bernie releases a video celebrating teachers’ strikes in WV.

• And we have to ask: When did middle-class teachers become the vanguard of the working class? Here at ILYBYGTH.