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education
Sanders Spurns Melania Trump's Vision of Robots 'Replacing Teachers'
"We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve."
Mar 27, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday rejected First Lady Melania Trump's vision of a near-future in which artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots do the work of human school teachers, arguing that society should instead do better by its human educators.
The wife of President Donald Trump entered Wednesday's gathering of the Global First Ladies Alliance accompanied by Figure 03, an AI-powered "general purpose humanoid robot" developed by the Sunnyvale, California-based company Figure.
“The future of AI is personified," Trump told attendees, who included Brigitte Macron of France, Sara Netanyahu of Israel, and Olena Zelenska of Ukraine. “It will be formed in the shape of humans. Very soon artificial intelligence will move from our mobile phones to humanoids that deliver utility.”
“Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato," she said. “Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous: literature, science, art, philosophy, mathematics, and history. Humanity’s entire corpus of information is available in the comfort of your home.”
Responding to Trump's remarks, Sanders (I-Vt.) said Friday on social media: "Call me a radical, but NO."
"We should not be replacing teachers in America with robots," the senator added. "We should attract the best and brightest in our country to become teachers and pay them the decent wages that they deserve."
Trump and Macron also warned about the dangers technology poses to children in remarks that came the same week that a New Mexico jury ordered tech titan Meta to pay a $375 million penalty for endangering youth and jurors in a landmark social media addiction trial found that Meta and YouTube harmed a child user of their platforms.
The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom—who is believed to be a likely contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination—also slapped down the idea of robot teachers, as did ordinary social media users.
"They want to replace human beings. Where will we work? How do we make money?" asked one X account with tens of thousands of followers. "No one wants this. We did not ask for it. Fuck all of this shit."
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Passports Welcome Here: The Importance of Crossing Borders at the Library
Back new bills now up for review to support libraries in providing passport application services, particularly in communities where it can be difficult or intimidating for people to use other federal offices.
Feb 28, 2026
Recent public announcements that many public libraries could no longer accept passport applications surprised many.
In a now unusual attempt at bicameral and bipartisan legislation, Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), have put forth bills (H.R.6997 and S.3733) that would enable all public libraries, whether they are organized as units of government or nonprofit organizations, to serve as passport acceptance facilities designated by the State Department.
As a university educator in Library and Information Science, I was at first taken aback by the passport application ban attempt. Many others were surprised that libraries had been accepting passport applications. But then perhaps neither the service nor the attempt to shut it down are a surprise at all.
Public libraries across the nation are an integral piece of our social and civic infrastructure. Librarians see up close the needs for social services in their communities, and they step up to meet those needs.
Libraries are where people step from one world into another, sometimes by opening books and sometimes by sharing space with people very different from themselves.
Libraries provide internet access for people who do not have the resources to get online from home or may not have a home where they can get online. Libraries provide physical shelter, in times of climate emergency like extreme heatwaves or intense freezes. They provide shelter for people who need to get off the street for a few hours to find a safe place. Recently, they have begin offering telehealth booths to support medical care in remote communities.
Libraries promote literacy, a lynchpin of economic security for both individuals and the communities in which they live. Indeed, there is considerable research demonstrating that there are higher literacy rates in communities with access to a public library, particularly in low income and rural areas.
There are approximately 17,000 public libraries in the United States, a number that has remained remarkably stable in the past few decades. Despite funding difficulties, skepticism about the value of physical libraries in the digital era, and political and social challenges to library collections, libraries remain at the center, meeting many of those communities’ needs.
Of course, it is perfect that libraries were places to apply for passports as they are places of border crossing. Libraries are where people step from one world into another, sometimes by opening books and sometimes by sharing space with people very different from themselves.
There is a public library that famously straddles the Vermont-Canada border where you can literally step across a border. That quiet fame has grown louder now that it plays a key role in Louise Penny’s latest novel, The Black Wolf.
To step into the world of the library at most you’ll need a library card. Everyone is welcome.
To be sure, not every library looks like it welcomes all people with open arms. Legacy architecture and practices can perpetuate the perception of the library as hushed and exclusive.
The precarity of funding for public libraries often prevents libraries from addressing that perception. Many libraries aspire to renovating and modernizing their spaces in ways that they simply cannot afford. Public libraries rely upon local taxpayers for much of their funding, but they also rely upon federal grants to innovate and develop new initiatives.
Nearly one year ago, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order intended to dismantle the only federal agency dedicated to funding library services, the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The agency awards almost $300,000,000 in grants every year, including more than $160 million that goes to states and largely supports the work of public libraries.
The executive order was successfully challenged in court by the attorneys general of 21 states, and on November 21 of last year, the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island struck down the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
One result of this victory is that last month, IMLS awarded for eight projects “dedicated to building AI literacy.” Once again, libraries see a need and step up to meet it.
Many people voice public criticism and concern about the use of public libraries. Critics complain that they are overrun with noisy teens after school, socializing and playing video games. Some complain libraries are filled with sleeping, foul-smelling people who experience homelessness, or that they are opening the doors for children to step into obscenity.
But it is crucial to see the critical need for accessible public libraries in this country. It is important to support these bills now up for review to support libraries in providing passport application services, particularly in communities where it can be difficult or intimidating for people to use other federal offices.
More than that, it is essential for the country for policymakers, funders, and all Americans to support libraries through ensuring funding, community advocacy, and moral support. It is crucial to help libraries continue to be places where everyone can cross borders and step into new worlds.
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An Invitation to Dance: How Bad Bunny Builds a Movement
Most of us don’t reason our way into a larger sense of “us.” We feel our way there. Bad Bunny understands that.
Feb 27, 2026
When Bad Bunny was announced as the Super Bowl halftime performer, critics predicted backlash. He’d be too Spanish. Too political. Not “American” enough. The assumption was that in a country this polarized, cultural borders were fixed—and he stood on the wrong side of them.
Instead, one of the largest audiences in National Football League history tuned in. Streams surged. Album sales climbed. Millions of viewers who didn’t understand every lyric found themselves moving anyway.
Maybe nothing flipped overnight. Maybe hardened partisans didn’t suddenly renounce their politics. What happened was subtler—and more powerful. The borders didn’t collapse. They became more permeable. How did Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio pull that off?
His Music Is a Joyful Invitation, Not a Grievance
Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rico has endured over 400 years of exploitation. And yet his music is uplifting; his community feels resilient, not defeated. Political messaging, especially among progressives, often starts with what communications strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio describes as, “Boy, have I got a problem for you.” Bad Bunny flips the sequence. He invites us to dance first. To celebrate music and food and love and family. It feels like the greatest party on Earth.
Without lecturing, Bad Bunny’s show gave us a history lesson on over 125 years of US colonization.
When I told my husband to check out Debi Tirar Más Photos, Bad Bunny’s Grammy Album of the Year (the first Spanish language winner ever), he was reluctant. The next day, though, the album was blasting through the house. The music is so accessible because there’s something for everyone. Even within a single song, he moves across genres and generations. Having grown up in the Bronx, I was drawn to the salsa rhythms of “Baile Inolvidable.” But then the dembow pulse of “Tití Me Preguntó” had me moving too—despite years of thinking that I didn’t like reggaeton because it all sounded the same. Bad Bunny’s music loosened assumptions I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying.
He Uses Curiosity as a Teacher
Viewers who tuned in for the spectacle of the halftime show noticed people dressed as sugar cane plants, workers climbing electrical poles, empty white plastic chairs scattered across the stage. What did it mean? I know I wasn't the only one burning a hole on the internet that evening. People don’t resist information they discover themselves, especially if they’re being entertained.
Without lecturing, Bad Bunny’s show gave us a history lesson on over 125 years of US colonization: the dismantling of Puerto Rico’s agricultural economy; environmental catastrophes; and gentrification driven by tax breaks for wealthy developers. The result: a diaspora in which 2 out of 3 Puerto Ricans now live off the island.
That’s not persuasion through argument. It’s softening through exposure.
His Call to Connect Counters the Us-Versus-Them Narrative Used to Divide Us
Bad Bunny’s music is more than about Puerto Rico. It’s about countering the fear and anger-mongering being used to pit us against each other. The deliberate cultivation of suspicion that someone else is taking what’s yours—when the real plundering is happening from the top.
His approach isn’t just entertainment. It’s strategy. Not a bid to crush opponents overnight, but a patient expansion of belonging—joyful, magnetic—until the line between “us” and “them” begins to dissolve.
Instead, Bad Bunny’s jumbotron message called on people to view each other through a loving lens instead of a hateful one. Former President Barack Obama praised the performance for conveying a simple message: There is room for everyone here. Contrast that to Turning Point’s All-American Halftime Show, the alternative created for those who preferred a narrower definition of who is an American.
Some observers have compared Bad Bunny to John Lennon who also insisted that love could be politically disruptive. Lennon’s “Imagine” wasn’t about changing policy; it was a call to picture the world differently. That imaginative shift is what unsettles power. Fear-based politics relies on narrowing who counts, on who gets to define the nation. Benito is all about expansion.
He Doesn’t Shrink to Widen His Audience
The NFL executives may have worried that Americans wouldn’t understand Bad Bunny if he didn’t sing in English, but he refused to change himself to accommodate a fractured country. He made the audience stretch instead. (Duolingo reported a 35% surge in Spanish learners following his show.) Understanding doesn’t always begin with translation. It can begin with proximity.
The anger directed at Bad Bunny, writes journalist Jim Heath, is about losing control over identity. “Latino culture is framed as divisive,” writes Heath, “only because its permanence challenges an older mythology about who America is.”
Changing Heart and Minds
We often assume persuasion begins with argument—that we must win debates before we can win anyone over. But most of us don’t reason our way into a larger sense of “us.” We feel our way there. Bad Bunny understands that. His work is an invitation: to learn about his culture, to experience joy together, to recognize how much we share. Not to contort ourselves to fit in, but to widen the circle without losing who we are. And before long, we’re dancing beside people we were warned to fear.
His approach isn’t just entertainment. It’s strategy. Not a bid to crush opponents overnight, but a patient expansion of belonging—joyful, magnetic—until the line between “us” and “them” begins to dissolve.
That’s how movements grow.
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