classicaleducator on Nostr: Musings of an American Bitcoin Educator Abroad on the 2024 Election I have been ...
Musings of an American Bitcoin Educator Abroad on the 2024 Election
I have been pretty aloof about the 2024 election. I know enough to have a tiny pulse on things, but honestly my faith in America was destroyed last year when the DOJ went after Trump initially and crimes by the opposing side went unnoticed by law enforcement. This came after my trust was broken over and over again, like with the issues of the treatment of the BLM protests vs. January 6 protesters. As a Roman historian and patriot with a deep love of the Constitution and the ideas that led to it, I walked away from America knowing it was broken and now live in El Salvador where freedom is rising like a phoenix from the ashes.
Even so, what is maybe not shocking having worked in academia during the 2012 and 2016 elections, is the response from the left academics regarding last week’s election. College professors are still crying, classes are getting canceled, exams postponed all because they did not get their way.
I remember in 2012, sitting in my office on campus the morning after the election. One of my colleagues skipped down the hallway, with arms raised above her head, swaying them as she shouted, “We won, we won.” I kept my head down and just acted as if I was engaged in my grading trying to avoid showing my disgust and exaggerated eye roll. I walked through the glee by students, administrators, and professors that day with a stoic expression, well, as stoic as this non-poker face yielding gal can have. I did not cry, I did not cancel my classes, I did not postpone anything. I took my disappointment of four more years of Obama like an adult and carried on with my life, hoping that the Constitution would be ok with another round of his presidency.
In 2016, things were obviously different. Leading up to the election, I had colleagues in the history department become avowed democratic socialists. The term alone should raise red flags for anyone who has studied history. I was confounded to see how easy it was for other historians and colleagues to compartmentalize their understanding of the past and be morally void of the horrors socialism can bring upon people. Yet, that was the state of the college campus.
I remember the morning after Trump was elected in 2016 that one such colleague remarked, “What will I tell my daughter.” I stayed silent as she pleaded with another colleague in the hallway, thinking to myself, “You explain the electoral college and the system we have in the United States in terms she can understand and that sometimes the people we vote for are not elected.” You carry on, as I did in 2012, and you find a fire within you to make the difference you can to make the world a better place, to leave students inspired and able to think for themselves, and to be better yourself.
So, as the fallout from academia happens once again, I am so happy to be an outsider now. To be in a country where there is hope, optimism, and to live among people who truly understand what it means to have their personal freedoms stripped from only to emerge in a better place. I am thankful to have found new colleagues, friends, and what I now call family here in El Salvador. To have the freedom to think independently and not have to hide my beliefs in fear of being ostracized to the point of having students and colleagues call for my firing, to have to go through the ringer because I do not conform.
Although my time in academia is not full of regret. I had an amazing time teaching art history, classic literature, history, and philosophy in my humanities classes. I learned so much through my leadership roles in curriculum and distance education. Even the bad experiences inspired me - I got my doctorate of education, studied intellectual diversity in academia. It was that led me to ultimately walk away from a tenured post I could have held until I retired, to find solace as a private teacher, a homeschool advocate, and an independent thinker that can live a happy life.
Although not where I set out to be, I am still teaching, sharing Bitcoin knowledge where I can, and advocating for homeschool and Bitcoin circular economies as a way to make the world a better place. I am also watching to see what happens in the United States and hope I am wrong about the Constitution being too far gone, like the Roman Empire was from the Roman Republican values were in the 5th century to survive.
#elsalvador #education #trump #academia #bitcoin
I have been pretty aloof about the 2024 election. I know enough to have a tiny pulse on things, but honestly my faith in America was destroyed last year when the DOJ went after Trump initially and crimes by the opposing side went unnoticed by law enforcement. This came after my trust was broken over and over again, like with the issues of the treatment of the BLM protests vs. January 6 protesters. As a Roman historian and patriot with a deep love of the Constitution and the ideas that led to it, I walked away from America knowing it was broken and now live in El Salvador where freedom is rising like a phoenix from the ashes.
Even so, what is maybe not shocking having worked in academia during the 2012 and 2016 elections, is the response from the left academics regarding last week’s election. College professors are still crying, classes are getting canceled, exams postponed all because they did not get their way.
I remember in 2012, sitting in my office on campus the morning after the election. One of my colleagues skipped down the hallway, with arms raised above her head, swaying them as she shouted, “We won, we won.” I kept my head down and just acted as if I was engaged in my grading trying to avoid showing my disgust and exaggerated eye roll. I walked through the glee by students, administrators, and professors that day with a stoic expression, well, as stoic as this non-poker face yielding gal can have. I did not cry, I did not cancel my classes, I did not postpone anything. I took my disappointment of four more years of Obama like an adult and carried on with my life, hoping that the Constitution would be ok with another round of his presidency.
In 2016, things were obviously different. Leading up to the election, I had colleagues in the history department become avowed democratic socialists. The term alone should raise red flags for anyone who has studied history. I was confounded to see how easy it was for other historians and colleagues to compartmentalize their understanding of the past and be morally void of the horrors socialism can bring upon people. Yet, that was the state of the college campus.
I remember the morning after Trump was elected in 2016 that one such colleague remarked, “What will I tell my daughter.” I stayed silent as she pleaded with another colleague in the hallway, thinking to myself, “You explain the electoral college and the system we have in the United States in terms she can understand and that sometimes the people we vote for are not elected.” You carry on, as I did in 2012, and you find a fire within you to make the difference you can to make the world a better place, to leave students inspired and able to think for themselves, and to be better yourself.
So, as the fallout from academia happens once again, I am so happy to be an outsider now. To be in a country where there is hope, optimism, and to live among people who truly understand what it means to have their personal freedoms stripped from only to emerge in a better place. I am thankful to have found new colleagues, friends, and what I now call family here in El Salvador. To have the freedom to think independently and not have to hide my beliefs in fear of being ostracized to the point of having students and colleagues call for my firing, to have to go through the ringer because I do not conform.
Although my time in academia is not full of regret. I had an amazing time teaching art history, classic literature, history, and philosophy in my humanities classes. I learned so much through my leadership roles in curriculum and distance education. Even the bad experiences inspired me - I got my doctorate of education, studied intellectual diversity in academia. It was that led me to ultimately walk away from a tenured post I could have held until I retired, to find solace as a private teacher, a homeschool advocate, and an independent thinker that can live a happy life.
Although not where I set out to be, I am still teaching, sharing Bitcoin knowledge where I can, and advocating for homeschool and Bitcoin circular economies as a way to make the world a better place. I am also watching to see what happens in the United States and hope I am wrong about the Constitution being too far gone, like the Roman Empire was from the Roman Republican values were in the 5th century to survive.
#elsalvador #education #trump #academia #bitcoin