"This is an unpopular opinion, but children's Zoom is critical to their resilience"

Let us admit the truth that everyone knows but rarely says out loud: Remote learning is an ongoing nightmare. The children hate it, the teachers struggle to manage a real lesson in front of a screen full of black squares, and for us parents it is a nuisance. We find ourselves chasing after the children in the morning, begging them to log in, struggling with a muting microphone, and praying that they will participate. So why? After all, it is clear to everyone that the learning effectiveness on Zoom is significantly lower, and between us – within the accumulated fatigue of the war, most of us do not even bother to wake the children for the morning lesson if we do not have to.

Therefore, when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich proposes to cancel remote learning now, at the peak of Operation "Roaring Lion", and transfer the budget to in-person school days during the Passover vacation, it seems that he is actually right. At least on paper. Economically and academically, it makes much more sense to invest public money in days when the children sit in the classroom and actually learn, rather than in two confused online hours that are interrupted every moment. On the face of it, this cut aligns perfectly with the academic rationale (and we will leave the Teachers' Union aside for a moment).

It is not important only in order "to maintain routine", and certainly not only for social interaction through the screen. Contrary to what is commonly believed, the main purpose of these meetings is not even the emotional "processing" of the situation, but the transition back to activity. In a reality in which they feel helpless, these meetings build for them one basic thing that an economic system does not know how to measure: A sense of value and capability.

Our children are not a bag that can be moved from place to place or from one protected space to another. Within complete chaos and lack of control, they must feel that they have responsibility and a task to wake up to in the morning. For remote learning to work, it simply needs to be refined: Give them a grade for mere attendance, give them offline assignments to do at home after the screen closes – things that will require them to be active. After the years of the coronavirus, the Swords of Iron War, and previous rounds, we now have the tools to draw lessons and refine the format. It may not be a masterpiece, but it certainly provides the child with small and essential doses of escapism, much more than we, the exhausted parents, have the strength to give.

This need is burning even more now, as the economy returns to partial work and many parents are required to come to the office or try to function from home. But it is important to put things on the table: Remote learning is not a babysitter. It is not intended only to keep the children busy so that we can manage to work. It is the last thing that keeps them within a sanity of connection and meaning. It is what prevents them from feeling and being detached, disconnected, and waiting between the sirens. It returns them to a place of commitment. And yet, it is difficult to ignore the realistic wink: When the child regains the anchor and the sense of capability, and the parent receives two hours of quiet for a work call, it is a clear Win-Win situation.

There is no doubt that remote learning has a financial and economic cost for the economy. But opposite the budget tables, the state must place the emotional cost. Opposite an emotional deficit of an entire generation that thirsts for meaning, activity, and responsibility, we must not cut their sense of value today, just in order to promise them reimbursements on Passover.