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CLARIN

Why Are The Argentine Pope And President Ignoring Each Other?

The most friendly of pontiffs, Argentine-born Pope Francis has yet to speak to just-elected President Mauricio Macri. Maybe a rude remark by one of Macri's aides is to blame.

Why Are The Argentine Pope And President Ignoring Each Other?
Ricardo Roa

BUENOS AIRES — Something seems amiss between Argentina's new president, Mauricio Macri, and the Argentine-born Pope Francis. All the world's diplomatic corps have extended their congratulations to Macri — all but the Vatican's. So many have offered comments on the first steps in government, but not Jorge Bergoglio, the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires who has made informality and cordiality his personal style. Not a word yet from the pontiff about Macri.

The reason given so far has been so formalistic as to beggar belief: The Vatican says the pontiff does not call to greet a recently elected president. Francis is many things, but one thing he is not is wedded to protocol. He calls people and sends e-mails left, right and center. Inevitably, his silence with Macri is provoking murmurings through the Argentine halls of power that are difficult to silence.

OK with Cristina K

The pope had several contacts with the last president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and was particularly considerate with her. He met with her when she was campaigning and even asked people (us?) to be kinder to her. This was in spite of the fact that when Bergoglio was archbishop, the former president refused to receive him 14 times and did not attend any of the annual Te Deum masses at the cathedral. The Kirchner couple, Néstor and Cristina, liked to call the then Primate of Argentina a conspirator, and accused him of having handed over two Jesuit priests to authorities under the military junta in the 1970s.

Yet Francis speaks to so many Kirchner partisans from the Peronist political family, including the just defeated presidential candidate Daniel Scioli — but not to Macri. Even when he disagreed with government appointments, he spoke to Kirchner about it. He was just photographed alongside Mario Moreno, the outgoing trade attaché at the Argentine embassy in Rome.

It is difficult to explain what's going on with Macri. Church officials reportedly said that Macri must take the first step. Official silence has a whiff of the Kirchners about it, whether it is Macri or the pope keeping silent. What are they waiting for? Is it a matter of pride?

This inevitably sends all looking for some kind of incident or run-in in the past, between them or their aides. And indeed, one showdown surfaces right away: On the eve of the second round of the presidential elections, Macri's adviser Jaime Durán Barba said Francis could not "win 10 votes." It was out of place, and reminiscent of Stalin's sarcastic observation when he asked, "the pope, and how many divisions does he have?"

Whether it is this or some other lingering resentment, time has come for the two leaders to break the ice — especially given the urgent socio-economic challenges that Argentina faces.

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Future

AI Is Good For Education — And Bad For Teachers Who Teach Like Machines

Despite fears of AI upending the education and the teaching profession, artificial education will be an extremely valuable tool to free up teachers from rote exercises to focus on the uniquely humanistic part of learning.

Journalism teacher and his students in University of Barcelona.

Journalism students at the Blanquerna University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.

© Sergi Reboredo via ZUMA press
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ - Early in 2023, Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates included teaching among the professions most threatened by Artificial Intelligence (AI), arguing that a robot could, in principle, instruct as well as any school-teacher. While Gates is an undoubted expert in his field, one wonders how much he knows about teaching.

As an avowed believer in using technology to improve student results, Gates has argued for teachers to use more tech in classrooms, and to cut class sizes. But schools and countries that have followed his advice, pumping money into technology at school, or students who completed secondary schooling with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have not attained the superlative results expected of the Gates recipe.

Thankfully, he had enough sense to add some nuance to his views, instead suggesting changes to teacher training that he believes could improve school results.

I agree with his view that AI can be a big and positive contributor to schooling. Certainly, technological changes prompt unease and today, something tremendous must be afoot if a leading AI developer, Geoffrey Hinton, has warned of its threat to people and society.

But this isn't the first innovation to upset people. Over 2,000 years ago, the philosopher Socrates wondered, in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, whether reading and writing wouldn't curb people's ability to reflect and remember. Writing might lead them to despise memory, he observed. In the 18th and 19th centuries, English craftsmen feared the machines of the Industrial Revolution would destroy their professions, producing lesser-quality items faster, and cheaper.

Their fears were not entirely unfounded, but it did not happen quite as they predicted. Many jobs disappeared, but others emerged and the majority of jobs evolved. Machines caused a fundamental restructuring of labor at the time, and today, AI will likely do the same with the modern workplace.

Many predicted that television, computers and online teaching would replace teachers, which has yet to happen. In recent decades, teachers have banned students from using calculators to do sums, insisting on teaching arithmetic the old way. It is the same dry and mechanical approach to teaching which now wants to keep AI out of the classroom.

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