Word: faribault
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LeVake started teaching biology at Faribault High School in 1997 after 13 years as a seventh-grade general-science instructor. It wasn't long before colleagues suspected he might have trouble teaching Darwin's theory to his 10th-graders. "We'd just sort of talk informally," says LeVake of his chats with fellow teachers. "I'd bring up things like 'Look at how complex this system is. It's hard for me to believe this all came about by chance mutations over billions of years.'" When department chair Ken Hubert asked LeVake point-blank how he planned to teach evolution...
...been too long since you've heard the word golly! uttered without irony, head to Faribault, Minn., a hamlet one hour south of the Twin Cities, and ask for Rod LeVake. Maybe LeVake will meet you for some apple pie at the Happy Chef and talk a little football. Whatever you chat about, he will be solicitous of your opinion and take pains not to overwhelm you with his. Of his job teaching high school science, he says, "It's just kinda fun to teach kids, to kinda show them how complex living things are, I guess. That's what...
This summer, which happens to mark the 75th anniversary of the Scopes "Monkey Trial," LeVake will take his cause to Minnesota's Court of Appeals, where, after losing in district court, he is suing the Faribault school district for discrimination. Really, he's suing for the opportunity to teach evolution in a new way. LeVake is a Fundamentalist Christian, but his biology lesson plan doesn't include the word God or creationism. All he asks is that as a scientist, he be allowed to let students know about some of the holes in Darwin's theory...
...laws and lesson plans brimming with religious language, and for years their cases were struck down on constitutional grounds. But creationists have evolved. Like LeVake, they began co-opting the logic of Darwinists and speaking in a softer voice. In fact, LeVake's case has barely stirred blue-collar Faribault (pop. 19,177). This is Minnesota, after all, and as just about anyone here will tell you, Minnesotans are nice. Laura Cesafsky, a recent Faribault High graduate who calls herself a proud liberal, wrote an editorial in the school paper decrying creationism but avoided using LeVake's name. She agrees...
...FARIBAULT, MINN. A science teacher takes on Darwin and is demoted...